Thanksgiving at the Bingleys
by Laina Lee
Summary: Elizabeth flees her mother's matchmaking, deciding to spend the Thanksgiving weekend hosted by newlyweds Charles and Jane. Unbeknownst to Elizabeth, Darcy will also be in attendance as he escapes Aunt Catherine with Gigi and Anne. Will this chance encounter between ODC after all the misunderstandings of the past lead them to a HEA or will Caro spoil everything?
1. Chapter 1

**So this little nugget entered my head when I was driving. The current plan is for it to be under 5,000 words, but we shall see.**

**Chapter 1**

The Bingleys were both in the kitchen working on their first Thanksgiving meal together. Bingley was stuffing the turkey while Jane was removing some gingerbread cookies from the oven. While waiting for them to cool before removing them from the sheets, she went to inspect Charles's progress.

"That turkey looks great!" she exclaimed. "Maybe official turkey chef should be your permanent Thanksgiving day post."

"Let's see how it turns out after it cooks. Is that the last of them?" He gestured to the cookies with his elbow while continuing to work on the turkey.

"Yes, all done and I've already adjusted the oven temp for the turkey."

"Awesome Jane. We make a great team!"

Jane came up to him and wrapped her arms around him from the side while still wearing her extra long oven mitts. She pulled his head down and gave him a kiss before snuggling against him.

"Hey, no fair. I can't hug you back."

"We do make a good team. I hope it is always like this. I don't want to turn into my father and mother. She is always complaining that no one helps her in the kitchen, but when we try she always tells us we are doing it wrong even though we try our best to follow her directions (and they are vague and often contradictory). Dad used to help, but it just became too much for him and now he and Uncle Phil go and hang out at Denny's bar each Thanksgiving while my mom and aunt cook in their separate kitchens. I thought I hated cooking until I got my first apartment and could try it by myself."

Charles washed his hands for a long time and then put the turkey in the oven. With that accomplished he turned to Jane. "But you told me the gingerbread cookies were a family tradition. Is it just a Jane and Elizabeth tradition from the past few years?"

"No. Didn't I tell you about them? Lizzy and I learned to make them from our Memaw, my dad's mom. After Thanksgiving (sometimes right after the Thanksgiving dinner, sometimes a few days later) we would always make them together; it was her way of welcoming in the Christmas season. By the time she was gone, the two of us knew how to make them ourselves. It seems odd to make them without Lizzy, but I wanted them to be one of our traditions."

Jane began lifting cookies from the sheet with a spatula to join the other cookies cooling on the rack. Charles wandered over to the counter to watch. "Is that why they are all Christmas shapes?" he asked while reaching for a candy cane shaped one.

"Paws off!" she told him, playfully swatting at him. "Didn't you hear me tell you about how they are to welcome in the Christmas season? You can't eat them until after Thanksgiving dinner, and anyway I haven't frosted them yet. I wish Lizzy was here to help me with them." Jane got a little wistful expression on her face.

"Well, if you wait to do it until after our guests arrive, I bet you can get some help. Gigi at least will help you, maybe Louisa, too, but I doubt Caro can be persuaded. The guys, well I don't know about them, but I'll be glad to join in with the decorating if you don't care about the end result and running out of frosting before the cookies are all decorated."

Jane smiled at him. "What a good idea. So you are an eats-frosting-right-out-of-the-can kind of a guy? I keep being surprised by what I don't yet know about you, hubby. You might be disappointed to find out that the frosting is just made with powdered sugar, corn syrup, milk and vanilla."

"That takes all the fun out of it" he mock-complained.

"The frosting may be plain, but that is so you can still taste the cookies. But I do have all sorts of sprinkles and candies to put on them."

"Ah, so I can sneak little bits at a time. Just like I like to sneak cookies." His hand darted out, grabbed a tree shaped cookie and shoved the whole thing in his mouth.

Before Jane could retaliate with him by tickling him, her phone rang.

Charles could only hear Jane's side of the conversation which consisted of: "Oh no. . . . That's awful. . . . She didn't! . . . Yes, of course. . . . Three . . . . We have it handled. You can help decorate the cookies. . . . Of course I did; you got me the cookie cutters after all. . . . Okay, see you then."

Charles was used to hearing these sorts of conversations. "So Elizabeth is coming to our Thanksgiving dinner? What did your mom do this time?"

"Oh Charles, do you remember that obnoxious third cousin of ours that Mom invited to the wedding?"

"You mean the one she was trying to set Elizabeth up with? The one who critiqued all our reception decorations with how well his rich boss would have liked them?"

"That's the one, Will Collins. My mom invited him for Thanksgiving dinner and to stay over for the whole long weekend. Apparently based on everything my mother told him, he thought that he was now Elizabeth's boyfriend. He was following her around and even tried to follow her into her bedroom when she was trying to change into an outfit my mother bought for her and insisted on. Elizabeth had to shut the door in his face and lock it. And then when she unzipped the garment bag, she found a leather skirt with a black and white zebra print and a red silk shirt with a plunging neckline, and there was even a box with red pumps that were a size and a half too small. There was no way Lizzy was going to wear that. So she decided to fly the coop and join our little shin-dig."

"Well, that's fine with me, but does she know that Darcy's going to be here with his sister for the weekend, too?"

"I . . . I should have told her. She was talking so fast that I really wasn't thinking about the logistics. She may end up on the couch, but she isn't mad at Darcy anymore, not for a while. She likes him better than Caroline and I know she knows your sisters were going to come. I never told him about Darcy and his sister since that happened since we talked last week. Do you think I should call and warn her?"

"That depends. Was she leaving right away?"

"Yeah, she said she had her things packed and it was us or Charlotte."

"I don't think you should call her then. With the way your sister drives when she is upset she might wreck while trying to pick up your call. And anyway, she will probably be here hours before Darcy."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Darcy had given himself plenty of time to drive from his Aunt Catherine's to the Bingleys' house. Really, he couldn't wait to get out of there first thing in the morning. He was sure that Bingley wouldn't care, and from what he knew of Jane, she wouldn't either. Georgiana wasn't particularly a morning person, so she had promptly fallen asleep in a well reclined seat in the back of his rented SUV, but surprisingly to him, Anne hadn't joined her. Instead she sat across from him, happily chirping about the things they were passing. They were ordinary things to him (a broken-down barn, some half-grown brown calves in a field, giant cylindrical bundles of hay, and the like) but seeing how much joy she took in them, Darcy regretted that he hadn't helped his cousin to escape from her mom's house earlier.

"Are you sure that it is okay that I am coming with you?" Anne repeated for probably the fifth time, so Darcy hurried to reassure her once again.

"Yes it is fine. Bingley and Jane are some of the nicest people you will ever meet. They would feed the whole world if it showed up on their doorstep. Thanksgiving is about sharing what you have with other people and celebrating that you have the bounty to do so, so an extra guest or two is just fine. And anyway, I texted from our last stop."

Darcy smiled a little in recalling how much Anne seemed to enjoy the convenience store. First she looked at all the variety of candies and then she spent at least five minutes admiring the little crystal animals and the wood carvings. He had been ready to get going, and tried to be patient as she considered them. Finally she bought a little unicorn, which the proprietor wrapped up in a scrap of newspaper.

Darcy was relieved that they were finally about to go, when Anne's eye was caught by the scratch ticket display. She considered all the choices before finally handing over a $100 bill and asking the lady behind the counter to give her an assortment. She came away with several "Holiday Cheer" varieties along with some "Break Fort Knox" and lots of other tickets with names that resembled game shows. The scratch tickets kept her busy for a while as she methodically scraped them off with a quarter. He tried not to care that little bits of the scrapings were going all over the SUV. He kept reminding himself that it was a rental and it didn't really matter. But he didn't like the idea of getting those little metallic flecks on himself or returning the SUV to the airport that way.

And then there was that magic moment when Anne whooped loudly and exclaimed, "I won! I won!" She carried on for a long time, even managing to get Gigi to pull her wireless ear buds out of her ears to see what all her excitement was about, before finally answering his question about the amount. It turned out she had won $25 at a game aptly entitled, "$25, $50 or $100 Blowout."

Anne was still celebrating fifteen minutes later, saying, "I've never won anything before, these scratch-offs are so much fun," when he finally interjected, "but you lost money playing."

"Oh who cares about that, it is not like I can take it with me and the money goes for education or some such. I am just happy to have fun while I can."

Darcy had no reply to make to that. Anne had been battling leukemia for a long time, but she was in a period of remission and while thin was no longer looking skeletal. Aunt Catherine was always taking about plans for Anne's future when she was finally well, but that future never seemed to come.

Anne took his silence for an invitation and commented, "If it comes back, I am done. I am not going to live the rest of my life in a hospital bed or cooped up in Mom's house. I'm going to refuse all treatment and have signed my DNRs. I should have died plenty of times already and I am not going to continue to live the rest of my life like I have. I've had more fun today than I have had in years. Thank God you agreed to take me with you today!"

"You mean this is more than just a weekend trip for you?" Darcy faced ahead, he was a careful driver and had never been in an accident yet (well not one that he had caused, he still remembered being a teenager and making the mistake of being in a car with George when he had a few. When they crashed, George tried to get him to switch seats with him before the cops showed up. Darcy had refused and that had been the beginning of the end of their friendship).

"Yes. I would love to move in with you and Gigi, but you don't have to take me. I have plenty of money in my trust fund to rent a good place, but I would rather be with family. It would be so exciting to live in New York City!"

It was a good thing that Darcy was facing straight ahead as suddenly a vehicle pulled out from a side street in front of them on the highway. Darcy slammed on his breaks and sounded a long blast on his horn. "What kind of idiot takes a right turn without looking to their left?" he grumbled to himself.

Anne laughed, "Well that was exciting!" I think you burned rubber and everything, and I don't think I have ever felt my seat belt lock before!"

Darcy let Anne's good cheer lighten the mood. As the car that had cut him off sailed ahead, he got a glimpse of curly brown hair that made him think of . . . "Elizabeth" he breathed to himself. But she would be at her parents and not at her sister's and also, they were probably a good twenty minutes away from the Bingleys' house.

Darcy maintained a safe three-second driving distance on US-40, which meant he could barely see the other driver. He told himself that there were a million drivers with curly hair and that it might even be a feminine looking man, or an old lady with a wig, but still, what little he could see of the driver still made him think of her. There were very few cars out at two p.m. on Thanksgiving.

When they hit the next light, he kept staring the person in front of him in the compact Toyota Corolla which had seen better days and sported a variety of dents. He tried to recall if Elizabeth had ever said anything about the car she drove. He noted that the car had Kentucky plates while they were now in Indiana, but told himself: _Get a hold of yourself, what are the chances that it is her. Kentucky and Indiana are border states so there are bound to be plenty of Kentucky license plates around._ He tried to ignore the hammering of his heart, which insisted with every rapid beat: _It is her!_

Just before the light turned green, the driver of the Corolla tucked her hair behind her right ear. The gesture was so familiar and he thought he saw a silver bracelet on her wrist, but he could not really make it out for sure.

Darcy kept following her car even when the GPS told him to take a left turn.

"Did we miss our turn?" Anne asked. Darcy ignored her; he was fixed on seeing who was in that vehicle.

The GPS told him to take the next left. He gave a soft sigh when the Corolla signaled left.

He followed the car through several turns. It turned at exactly the same places that the GPS indicated. He was almost sure now.

"Is that car going to the same place as we are?" Anne asked. "It has been in front of us for a long time."

Again Darcy said nothing. He gave a louder sigh of relief when the Corolla turned right down a long gravel driveway and parked in front of the house he recognized from Bingley's texted photo. He parked to behind the Corolla. There was no place else to park. He turned off the ignition and waited to see who would emerge from the Corolla.

The driver fumbled with something on the passenger-side seat. _Her purse_, his mind helpfully suggested. He could see a bit of her profile as she did it. _Definitely a woman. _He knew, and yet he was scared to hope that it might indeed be her. The last time they had parted, he hoped they might be friends, but then he heard nothing. He had hoped to see her at Bingley's wedding six months earlier, but Anne had another crisis and everyone had thought it might be the end and so he bailed on his best man duties at the last minute and sent a Kitchen Aid mixer in a pink shade that matched the sweater Jane was wearing in her engagement photo to make up for it. Bingley had been very understanding.

Anne whispered to Gigi in the back seat, "Your brother is acting weird. Who is that?"

Gigi turned off her MP3 player and pulled out her earbuds. She had not heard what Anne had said, but recognized that they had stopped. "What did you say, Anne?"

Anne repeated herself. Gigi said, "That almost looks like . . . I think . . . its Elizabeth, Elizabeth Bennet."

"It is _her_, isn't it." Darcy said. His voice sounded strange to her. Almost like he was about to cry. He kept sitting as she lifted her trunk lid and started pulling a large suitcase from her trunk.

"Don't be an idiot, Darcy." Gigi exclaimed. "Don't just sit here. Go help her with her suitcase."

Darcy obeyed with alacrity, exiting the car without even closing the door. He was oblivious to the fact that the SUV was beeping because the key fob was in his pocket and he hadn't shut off the engine.

Elizabeth glanced up. Her eyes widened. "Darcy! I didn't know you would be here." If she heard the beeping from the SUV, she ignored it. Elizabeth let him take the suitcase and carry it to the door, walking beside him in silence. Anne observed that while they walked, their heads were tipped toward each other.

When the door closed behind them, Anne pulled her eyes away and looked back to Gigi. "So tell me everything. Just who is this Elizabeth Bennet?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Thank you for all the love for the first two chapters. Things are moving rather quickly in the story as these two dunderheads just need to be in each other's company for a bit to hash things out and to realize that they are finally on the same page. The only problem is that there are a lot of other people around, both those that want to be helpful but may unintentionally prevent the needed conversation from taking place and at least one who wants to sabotage any opportunity for Darcy and Elizabeth to be closer. I've had to cut this chapter shorter than I would have liked because I am traveling tomorrow.  
**

**Chapter 3**

When Elizabeth got on the road she was still seething with anger, anger at her doofus of a cousin who couldn't seem to get it through his thick head that she wasn't interested, and anger at her mom for thinking she should dress like a hooker for Thanksgiving dinner to attract said middle-aged, balding man with the worst conversational skills she had ever met. She drove way too fast, anxious to get away from her trouble and to get to Jane. Fortunately, no troopers seemed to be out on Thanksgiving day.

The five hour drive had flown by, uneventful but for the jerk who honked at her. _Where had he come from, anyway and why did that SUV seem to keep following her, albeit at a safe distance? Coincidence_, she told herself, _just coincidence_.

But coincidence couldn't explain him following all her turns and driving down the driveway. Elizabeth paused before turning off her engine (which would make the doors unlock), grabbing her phone from her purse just in case she would have to call her sister or the police, but after she grabbed her phone, she finally studied the driver in her rear-view mirror rather than just the hulking SUV with the large grill which sported the Lincoln symbol that he was driving. Although he was in shadow, he looked like, "Darcy!" she exclaimed to herself. "But who is that blonde woman with him?" _Girlfriend_, her mind suggested. Elizabeth hurriedly tucked her phone back in her purse and went to get her suitcase before he would get out and she would have to meet Darcy and his girlfriend in the driveway.

But Elizabeth wasn't fast enough, mostly because her suitcase was too heavy to heft out of the trunk quickly. When Darcy turned up at her elbow and began reaching for her suitcase, Elizabeth felt a bit of gratitude but also annoyance, it should be her new brother helping her instead of him.

"What are you doing here, Darcy?" she asked.

As soon as Elizabeth spoke those words embarrassment hit her. She sounded petulant when she wanted to sound reasonable. It would only confirm what he thought of her.

Yet again she wondered what he must think of her and her family to invent that tired excuse of a sick relative to avoid standing up across from her at her sister's wedding and being best man for Charles. And worse yet was the fact that Charles and Jane actually seemed to believe that excuse, with them only expressing minor disappointment and no incredulity. She remembered Jane saying, "He wrote the kindest text after his hurried one explaining the circumstances. It was full of regrets; it is a wonder that he took the time given that he was at the hospital and so worried about his cousin."

Elizabeth held her tongue then about the fact that Darcy was obviously lying. It was nothing extraordinary at all to write a kind note when you were trying to keep your friend in the dark when you were ditching him. If Charles and Jane were oblivious, she did not want to cast a shadow on their big day.

Elizabeth felt disappointed with Darcy, that he wasn't the man she had almost thought he was, especially when she looked over at Quinton Hurst standing across from her where Darcy should have been. Quinton or "Q" as he preferred (he told her at the rehearsal dinner and said it was a reference to "NextGen;" he seemed rather put out that he had to explain to her that there was a character in Star Trek the Next Generation with that name) was wearing a suit rather than a tux as there was no time to obtain one. It was just the four of them up there with the minister.

When Elizabeth should have been listening to the words the minister was saying about what marriage meant, she was instead thinking about the fact that Darcy must not care about Charles all that much if he couldn't look past the fact that she would be there. Then she considered that maybe he still disapproved of Jane due to their family and knew how hypocritical it would be to stand there all the while thinking that he would rather be objecting. She had been liking the Darcy that she had finally been getting to know when Lydia had to go and ruin it all. But who was this man truly, if he would disappoint his best friend in this way?

Elizabeth was snapped back to the present and the man before her when Darcy answered evenly, in a controlled tone, no hint of what he thought of her question in his bland expression, "Thanksgiving dinner, same as you I expect. I came to see Bingley and to get away from my aunt." He paused and Elizabeth felt he was censoring himself when he added, only half looking at her, "she isn't always the nicest person to be around." He looked back in Elizabeth's eyes when he clarified, "I couldn't stand to hear her insulting someone I care about."

Elizabeth had only met Darcy's aunt, Ms. de Bourgh, once. She had been hosting a charity event to benefit leukemia research at her mansion in Nashville. Elizabeth's mother had bought two seats for a charity dinner and ball. Originally the seats were supposed to be for her mother and father. Mrs. Bennet had gone on and on about what a worthy cause it was and naturally Elizabeth had agreed (although she was almost certain that her mother's only interest in attending was to be able to drool over all the ostentation that was supposed to be Rosings Plantation).

Elizabeth found she had been outmaneuvered a day or so later when her mother told her, "It seems that your dad and I won't be able to attend that charity event after all, and to think we already purchased the tickets. You and Charlotte should go instead. I've already talked to the Lucases about it and they think it will be a great thing for you girls. You will both have fun and it is for a good cause after all, and there might just be some eligible young men in attendance." Mrs. Bennet winked.

Her mother tried to get her to go evening gown shopping with her a few days later, but Elizabeth had gotten the best of her mother by already having purchased an evening gown at a consignment store she had shopped at with Charlotte. Elizabeth had to take up the hem and take some material from the shoulders to fit her five foot two and a half inch frame, but once that was done, it had been perfect. Mrs. Bennet had to admit that she looked good in it, even if her mother would have lowered the neckline if she could have.

But then Elizabeth had the nasty surprise of finding out that their seats were at the table which Cousin Will Collins was hosting. Making small talk with Will was the worst, though Charlotte at least tried to help, telling Elizabeth when they were in the powder room, "He is not so bad."

Later in the evening, Will had insisted, "Come on Cousin Elizabeth, you must meet Ms. de Bourgh." Charlotte had come with them and so was there to hear Will Collins say, "Ms. de Bourgh, it is my honor to introduce you to my date, Elizabeth Bennet. I very much doubt she has ever had the honor of meeting anyone half as important as you."

Elizabeth regretted not contradicting him about their non-dating status, but did not want to embarrass him in front of his boss. Ms. de Bourgh said, "My, Elizabeth is it? You are a pretty-ish sort of girl. You will do for Mr. Collins indeed." And then to Mr. Collins, she sniffed, "I would not have even thought someone from the backwoods of Kentucky could clean up so well. When you mentioned your cousins the Bennets had five daughters all I could think was, haven't they heard of birth control? No one should ever have more than one or two children in this day and age."

Elizabeth was very angry (she could not imagine her family without Mary, Cathy and Lydia and how dare Ms. de Bourgh suggest they should not exist), but a charity event did not seem to be the right place to murder her hostess. Charlotte headed off anything Elizabeth might say by asking Will Collins, "Could you introduce me to Ms. de Bourgh, too?"

Just then Darcy had come by. He asked, "What are you doing here? Aren't these tickets a bit out of your budget?"

Elizabeth felt the insult in those words, but evenly said, "It is such a good cause. Shouldn't we all do our part?"

"Perhaps, but it would be better to just give the money directly rather than for all this money to be spent on the food and entertainment." Darcy proclaimed.

Elizabeth felt all the irritation inherent in his words, which implied she had made a poor choice to attend rather than just donate money, even though she had been thinking something similar herself. "Then why are you here, Darcy?"

"Well I have to be, Catherine de Bourgh is my aunt." Then without asking, he took her by the hand and led her out onto the dance floor. "My aunt is something else, but she is in a lot of pain. This event and ones like it are not going to change what has happened to those that she cares about most."

Still, though she was annoyed at him, Elizabeth had to admit that Darcy was a good dancer and it felt very natural to be in his arms, letting him expertly lead her. And the way he looked at her, like she was the only woman in the room, had her heart beating faster. She tried to remember why she hated him, his mistreatment of George Wickham, his disappearing act with Charles Bingley which had her thinking that Darcy had decided that Jane was not suitable for him, even after all the care Charles had lavished on Jane after she twisted her ankle on their ski weekend. She had overheard Darcy and Charles's younger sister talking about how uncouth her whole family was, Caroline had opined, "Jane is a sweet girl; too bad she comes from a family of hicks."

At the charity event while they danced, Darcy told her, "I am glad you are here, Elizabeth. I've been fighting my feelings for you for a long time, you aren't exactly the kind of woman I usually go for, I've been used to moving with the best families and let's face it, your whole family but for Jane are pretty embarrassing. But I would like to get to know you better. I think we should start dating; I think we can have a future together."

Elizabeth let him have it then, taking out all of her annoyance at her mother, Mr. Collins, Ms. de Bourgh and Darcy too, all in one extended tirade while they continued to dance: "Of all the hypocritical, egotistical, wrongly self-righteous crap anyone could sling, you have gone and done it. Darcy, if you were the last man on earth I would never date you. I was sure that Jane and Charles were a match made in heaven but you broke them up, didn't you? And now you want to go out with me after you have just insulted my family? You are so cruel with what you did to George, I would never trust you. I would rather date my cousin Will Collins because at least I would know what I was getting with him." Then she stormed off.

Elizabeth couldn't think of Ms. de Bourgh without thinking of how mean she had been to Darcy before she really understood the whole story about what a creep George Wickham was, or that Darcy had believed Jane's placidity meant she was willing to catch any rich man who came her way, rather than liking Charles for himself.

As Elizabeth walked beside Darcy, she wondered if Darcy's aunt had insulted Bingley. It would make sense that Darcy would come to see Bingley if that were the case. They walked to the door and rather than knock Elizabeth just walked in. "My sister is expecting me," she explained, "and she doesn't stand on ceremony." She called out, "Jane, Charles, I'm here."

"Me, too." Darcy echoed her, feeling off balance that he had just walked in after her. He wasn't family after all. They paused a moment in the foyer and Darcy set the suitcase down. He couldn't wheel it over the gravel path and it felt like she was packing a whole set of cast iron cookware in the battered black suitcase which looked like it was the maximum dimensions for an airplane checked bag.

"Coming," a feminine voice came from the right. _Likely the kitchen_, he thought, correctly as it turned out.

"How long are you staying?" Elizabeth asked Darcy as they waited, hoping desperately that he would be leaving after dinner. Elizabeth planned to stay for the whole weekend. She was between apartments and she couldn't move in with Charlotte until Charlotte's new lease started on Sunday and though she would be welcomed, she did not want to crash with the Lucases as Charlotte was doing. She would do her best to make nice with him for the sake of Jane, but it would be easier if it was just for today. _And why did he have to smell so good and be so handsome? _She felt how easy it would be to be "in like" with him again, as she had been before Lydia ruined it all. But she couldn't blame her sixteen-year-old baby sister too much, she had done dumb things too at that age, had snuck one of her dad's cigars just to see what it was like and made herself sick in the woods behind her childhood home, woods that had been bulldozed since then to make way for a new housing development.

"We were planning on staying the whole weekend, but I'll leave after dinner if you want me to." Darcy stared at her, thinking, _I have waited so long to see you! Please, please tell me that you want me to stay, or at least that you don't mind if I do. I will be whatever you want. I know it is too late, but please, please feel something for me. I know you don't love me, but I couldn't stand your indifference._

"Who is we?"

"Gigi and Anne, oh my goodness I forgot about them. I'll be right back." Darcy dashed out of the front door, leaving Elizabeth standing there alone. She might have followed him out, she had liked Gigi when she had met her and was curious about girlfriend Anne, but no sooner had the door closed of its own accord than Jane was there.

Elizabeth found herself enveloped in a great big hug, the kind of hug only her closest sister or the dearest friend could bestow. But perhaps because she had just seen Darcy, she found herself comparing the current hug to the one he had given her, only once, when she'd gotten that text from Jane, saying that Lydia was missing and was believed to have gone off with George Wickham from a party at which they had both been drinking.


	4. Chapter 4

**So this chapter contains a lot of flashbacks, but the next one after this will have a lot of forward action. As I am traveling, please excuse my delay in posting and any spelling errors. It takes longer to write on a Kindle and it has no spell-check capacity; additionally, my time has not been my own. My nephew is getting married today, yay!****Chapter 4**

Gigi and Anne were happily chatting in the Lincoln Navigator when Darcy returned. They had been busy talking, with the words rapidly tumbling out of Gigi's mouth. Gigi explained to Anne, "Elizabeth Bennet is the woman that my brother will marry someday if he can play nice and keep from acting like a pretentious jerk. You know how he can be!"

Anne nodded knowingly, "Darcy is the poster child for foot in mouth syndrome. So how do you know that she is the one for him?"

"Because she won't take any crap. Elizabeth could care less about how important he is. She put him in his place and he was the better for it; he needs that. And she is smart, well read and enjoys learning new things, but isn't full of herself, just has a inward confidence from knowing who she is. She's got a wicked, irreverant sense of humor and a zest for life. She isn't the sort that needs a man. I really like her a lot. It must be fate that she is here, hopefully it will give them a chance to get back on track."

"She sounds awesome," Anne declared. "I've always wanted a chance to matchmake like they do in the movies. Now what can we do to get them together?"

"Later," Gigi hissed, "here he comes."

Darcy opened the driver's side door, climbed in, closed the door and turned the SUV off. "I'm sorry I left you in here; I was kind of distracted."

"No worries," Anne said, then grinned, "Gigi was telling me all about you and Elizabeth."

"There is no me and Elizabeth." Darcy looked sad. He ran his hand through his hair in a gesture that both women knew meant he was distressed.

"But you would like there to be, right?" Gigi asked.

Darcy pinked a bit and stared down at his lap rather than looking at either of them before responded. He tamped down on his thoughts, _Oh God, yes!_ before answering more blandly, "Yes, but that's never going to happen. I had a little bit of hope when we bumped into each other in New York months after I sent that Facebook message that she saw but never answered, but it is pretty clear to me from how she is acting today that she is just tolerating me."

Darcy's eyes got a far away expression as her stared through the windshield to the house. _I wonder what she is doing now; is she complaining to her sister about me? Please, no!_

He flashed to the memory of seeing Elizabeth in Bryant Park in Midtown Manhattan near the building which housed his corporation's headquarters on the top two floors. For once he felt he had come off well when he talked with her and her aunt and uncle. He was just returning from a business lunch and was about to attend a board meeting upstairs, but had invited them up to see the view and amazingly they had accepted.

Darcy was nervous as the elevator zoomed up express to the top floor at the touch of his card key. But Elizabeth's uncle started talking about some of the architectural details of the skyscrappers in NYC and they continued the conversation when they stepped out of the elevator. He took them into his corner office which had an excellent view of both the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building. He enjoyed seeing their looks of wonder, most especially Elizabeth's, but then Mrs. Reynolds came in as polite as always and told him, "Mr. Darcy, you have your meeting in ten minutes."

"It has been wonderful seeing you again, Elizabeth, and meeting you both, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, but I must go. I don't want to keep them waiting, and neither should you wait on me, but stay as long as you wish and Mrs. Reynolds can take you down. If you are free later, I would love for you to meet my sister. Perhaps I can take you all out to dinner and to a Broadway show?"

They spoke among themselves and quickly agreed. Darcy left them in his office, arranging for Mrs. Reynolds to use his connections to get him last minute reservations for dinner and the theatre. He called Gigi on his cell, explaining, "Gigi, you'll never believe it, she's here! Please tell me you don't have much homework tonight and can go to dinner and a show."

The next two days had been wonderful. Darcy saw Elizabeth as much as he could, although not all of his appointments could be shuffled around. But then there was that Saturday morning when a meeting canceled at the last minute when he was only a few blocks from her hotel, so he'd asked his driver to take him there instead. He called up to her room from the lobby and she'd told him to come up.

When Darcy knocked on the door, he was met with a pasty looking Elizabeth. She appeared as if all the blood had drained from her face, with her skin paler than the light pink summer pajamas she was wearing. He noticed her p.j.s had little rosebuds on them and her dark curls were tangled. It looked like she had just woken up or was having a lazy morning.

Elizabeth let him in but immediately flew towards her open green carry-on suitcase.

"What on earth is wrong!?!" He exclaimed loudly. "Are you ill? I can call a doctor . . . ." He was already pulling out his phone, desperately hoping to help her.

She paused for a moment and Darcy could see that Elizabeth was trembling. "I must get dressed and go find my aunt and uncle; they are having breakfast nearby."

"Let me go get them, or better yet, call them. You aren't well."

Elizabeth dashed over to her purse on the nightstand and pulled out her phone. Her hands were shaking as she fumbled with the touch screen. After a few moments of struggle she exclaimed, "I accidentally locked it and can't seem to can't to hit the right letters and numbers to unlock it."

"Do you know your uncle's number?" She nodded. "You should sit down, I don't want you to faint." He helped her over to the bed, trying not to enjoy holding her or the look she gave him as she let him help her. He also tried not to notice how thin her pajamas were, or the lovely figure they showed. "I'll call him on my phone."

His finger rapidly dialed the numbers as she said them and he was relieved when Mr. Gardiner answered right away. Not knowing what was the matter, he only said, "This is Darcy, I am with Elizabeth. You need to come back to the hotel ASAP, Elizabeth received some bad news and needs you."

After he got off the phone, he wanted to do anything he could. "Do you want some water? Is there anyone else I can call?"

She shook her head. He pulled the only chair by the bed and sat down. " You are too kind to me, I do not deserve it." Then she burst into tears.

Without a second thought, he got up and as if she knew what he intended, she got up, too, and as he extended his arms, she tucked herself against him hugging him before his arms wrapped around her. Elizabeth trembled and shook in his arms, her head to the side against his chest under his chin. He could smell the fruity scent of her shampoo,_ green apple_, in her curls. He was very aware of the feeling of her, how wonderful it felt to have her in his arms, even though he had never pictured her hugging him while wearing her jammies against him in his dark wool suit, but he focused on soothing her rather than his own selfish romantic feelings, knowing the circumstances of their closeness only meant she needed someone. He rubbed circles on her back, under her curls, as he had done many times for Gigi after their parents died in the plane crash. Gradually her shaking abated and she calmed.

When Elizabeth relaxed in his arms, Darcy became more aware of the feel of her, of wanting her; even though he knew this was not the time, he imagined bending down awkwardly to kiss her. He knew he needed to let her go. When Darcy began to pull back, Elizabeth tightened her grip on him, pulling him closer and then began to cry. He hummed softly a lullaby and continued to hold her with one arm while he fumbled for a tissue in his coat pocket.

After Elizabeth finally settled, Darcy helped her back to sitting on the bed and she pulled him down beside her. They sat in silence, their thighs pressed against each other, her tucked against his side, each one with an arm around the other. Darcy was quiet now, content to sit in silence with her holding vigil for something as yet unknown.

Finally she spoke. "I just got the most horrible text from Jane. Lydia is missing. She and Cathy were supposed to be at a sleepover at Maria Lucas's but only Cathy came home. She confessed they went to a party with drinking and older guys with Harriet instead. Harriet's been sneaking around with a guy who's in the Kentucky National Guard, reserves, and George Wickham was there with his friend, Denny. Cathy didn't see it, but Lydia told Harriet she was leaving with George. She left her phone at the party and no one can find her."

Darcy was shocked and astonished and angry at George, but what was worse was when he heard Elizabeth blame herself.

"When I think that I could have prevented this by telling my family what George Wickham was like, even a portion of what you shared with me, about his binge drinking, his use of drugs and his reckless, dangerous behavior when he is drunk or high! What if they have wrecked some place or he's taking advantage of her while he isn't thinking clearly?"

"Would Lydia let him doing something like that?"

"I'm sure she would. She's young and dumb. She had a crush on George before, but it seemed to fade while he was dating Mary King. We have no idea where they are holed up, but we must find her and the three of us can search more effectively than my parents."

At first Darcy thought she was referring to him in that "three" before realising that she meant herself and her aunt and uncle.

"My mother is in hysterics and Jane is needed to comfort her; my dad barely know who Lydia's friends are, let alone who knows George."

Darcy thought about how much worse George was than Elizabeth even knew. While he had told her about George taking Gigi out partying (on her dime of course) and George getting pulled over by the cops driving Gigi when his blood alcohol limit was twice the legal limit (George was allowed to get the charges dismissed after he stayed out of trouble for a year), Darcy never told Elizabeth about the other thing George did.

Aunt Catherine never wanted him to talk about Anne's condition to anyone, so Darcy hadn't told Elizabeth about how years ago, George had been found to be a bone marrow match for Anne but refused to help her, without a hefty and illegal cash payout. Darcy figured it wasn't relevant anyway; it was not like anyone in her family needed George's bone marrow.

All of Anne's relatives were tested prior to that time, save for their cousin Richard Fitzwilliam who was serving oversees in Iraq, but no one was a match. Darcy, even more desperate not to lose Anne as his parents had just passed a year earlier, asked all his employees to volunteer to test to see if they might be a match for Anne as it seemed likely she would need a bone marrow transplant sometime in the future. He didn't really think they would find a match, the odds were long, but he hoped a donor might be found for another desperate family.

The testing on the volunteers happened only days before George was fired; his work was abysmal but Darcy kept trying with him, sending him to treatment program after treatment program on Darcy's own dime before finally concluding that George did not want to change. His Aunt Catherine was so excited a match was found but then the potential donor refused to proceed any further.

How George Wickham found out he was a match for Anne and not someone else Darcy never knew, but George came to see him one day with a proposal a couple of years later after Anne sickened once again (this was after the incident with Gigi). The next day Darcy discussed with his aunt whether they should pay the bribe when the time came. George had asked for a million dollars.

Anne surprised them both by declaring, from flat on her back in a hospital bed, "No making decisions for me! I've heard too much about what a snake the son of the former VP is. It is not worth paying him. I don't want that man's marrow in me anyway! What he is trying to do is illegal and what if it turns out he is lying and he isn't a match for me anyway?"

"But Anne," her mother's eyes were bright with as of yet unshed tears (she never cried in front of Anne if she could help it), "don't you know you are worth everything? I don't need Rosings or any of the rest. I only need you. We'll get the doctors to confirm before we pay him."

"It would be one thing if George Wickham was trying to redeem his God-forsaken soul by gifting me with a second chance, but I can't help but feel the taint of him is nothing I want in me."

Darcy was about to offer Elizabeth his help in finding George and Lydia, when the Gardiners' burst in. Elizabeth got up, so he did too, missing the feel and warmth of her against him. He knew it was selfish of him, but he wished he could be the one to find her sister for her, the one to be her hero, but who was he to her but the man who had insulted her, caused unhappiness to her sister, who had disgusted her with his conduct when he had felt she would be honored by his attentions and was expecting them. He might have redeemed himself a bit, but this was a family matter.

After the first flurry of information was exchanged, Darcy excused himself, telling Elizabeth, "I will pass on your regrets to my sister. She was looking forward to seeing you again this evening."

She offered him a mild, "Thank you," then turned immediately back to his relatives. Feeling bereft, he left.

Darcy went to his office and started making calls. He had been keeping track of George in case the situation became desparate enough that Anne changed her mind. Within a day he had several good leads. He texted Edward Gardiner about them (asking that his name be left out of it) and also contacted the police. Edward Gardiner texted back the next day: "We found them. Lydia opened the door when when the police knocked. George was passed out with a needle in his arm. Lydia was high on meth but otherwise unharmed. She confessed she tried to get him to do it, but he was too intoxicated for the equipment to work. George is in jail for possession; they let her parents get Lydia. I want to tell Elizabeth what you did for us."

Darcy responded: "I don't want her gratitude. It was just the right thing to do. For many years my father and then I would help George get out of trouble until he pulled a similar stunt with my sister. Maybe if he had faced the consequences of his actions sooner, he might have changed for the better by now. I didn't treat your niece as she deserved before; I thought we got off on a better foot this time, but Elizabeth's gratitude would just taint things. There us still more I need to fix, before I would ever be worthy of her."

The next day Darcy called Charles Bingley and explained all. Charles was mad but forgave him once he got Jane back.

Darcy hoped to see Elizabeth at the wedding, but Anne sickened and they thought it might be the end. Richard was even able to get emergency leave. But the third antibiotic finally did the trick and cured the nasty hospital acquired infection Anne had gotten after the last round of chemo.

Richard was tested and turned out to be her long awaited match, but the transplantation had to wait until Anne was strong enough and still had not taken place and Richard was back overseas again. Finally there was real hope, though, where there had been little before. But Aunt Catherine was terrified to let Anne live her life.

"I knew you cared about Elizabeth Bennet," Gigi declared, snapping Darcy out of his remembering. "You really like her, even after all these months. You _like _her, like her. I knew when you defended her to Aunt Catherine this morning." At Anne's confused look, "You missed most of it, Anne."

The morning's event was before Darcy in an instant, in vivid detail. They were all up and dressed, having a lazy breakfast while his aunt's chef and assistants worked tirelessly in the gourmet kitchen she never cooked in; Darcy felt sorry for them, to be working on Thanksgiving day!

After taking a few bites of a fluffy crape drenched in whipped cream, strawberries and strawberry sauce, with a sweetened ricotta filling, Anne told her mother, "I am finally feeling well enough to plan a trip to visit Darcy and Gigi in New York City! It will be so much fun."

"That sounds great!" Gigi enthused, taking a bite of her crepe. "Can we take Anne out to fancy restaurants and to Broadway shows like we did when Elizabeth Bennet was in town? You work too much, brother, and we ought to show Anne everything." She gestured with her fork. "Oh, we can ride on one of those silly Lndon style double decker buses and take the whole tour, and visit the Statue of Liberty, Staten Island, Chinatown, the works! Subways are stinky, but maybe you'll want to experience that, too. Oh, and Times Square, the Apollo, a comedy club (I can't go, not old enough for those two drink minimums but Darcy can take you), Shakespeare in the park. I've always wanted to skate at Rockerfeller Center and the Christmas decorated windows in New York are the best!"

Aunt Catherine was vehemently shaking her head, "no," but politely waited for Gigi to pause and take another bite, this time it was a strawberry swiped through a mound of whipped cream, before saying, "No, no Anne. You are much too sick. You must try to keep well to get your transplant."

"I will too go if I want to!" Anne ran off to her room in a huff. Anne could be rather childlike in both good ways and bad. Darcy attributed it to have never really getting to grow up and be independent since she got sick and was homeschooled (or more like home tutored by a series of teachers).

Then turning to Darcy, Catherine de Bourgh said, "Surely you won't encourage her silly ideas. Anne sometimes doesn't know what is best for her."

"Anne's a grown woman," Darcy responded. "I will encourage her to talk with her doctors about it. But then it is up to her." In remembering, he could almost taste the crepe from this morning, still slightly warm, tender, almost melting in his mouth with the burst of flavor when he chewed the strawberry which must have been imported from somewhere where it had been freshly picked in season.

Catherine narrowed her eyes suspiciously and asked, "Elizabeth Bennet . . . wasn't she the Kentucky hick that was dating Will Collins? I wonder if her parents are cousins; come to think of it, Collins was her cousin, too, and if he isn't inbred, I don't know who is. One of five daughters . . . Did her parents have no self control or are they against birth control? Are they Catholics or Mormons? Surely they're not Muslims! She's too white. That's not the sort of woman you should be associating with. Why, you can get a heiress like that Caro Bingley; she's a self respecting Episcopalian and contributes to all the right causes."

"Aunt, you will not insult my friends!"

"Yeah, Elizabeth was a friend all right." Her words dripped with sarcasm. "I saw how she was dressed the night of the charity ball. You men; only thinking about one thing! She is a gold digger for sure. She had Collins but thought she could trade up."

"She was dressed in a ball gown, just like all the other women! She showed less skin than most." Darcy was getting angrier. "She is smart and was not impressed by my money."

"Elizabeth's great." Gigi commented. "I liked her a lot. We all went out with her and her relatives and my brother finally relaxed and allowed himself to have fun."

Catherine ignored them. "She is a hussy for sure! She's probably hoping you will knock her up, then your child would be her meal ticket."

"That's it," Darcy declared angrily, "I wanted to have a pleasant visit with you and Anne but I give up. I can't stand another minute with you. I'm going to spend my Thankgiving weekend with people who are kind. Let's go pack up, Gigi, and then say goodbye to Anne."

Ignoring him, Aunt Catherine turned to his sister. "Gigi, please stay. Anne has been counting on your visit. We can go on an online shopping spree, my treat."

From the stubborn set of Gigi's mouth, Darcy knew he had his sister's support. "I don't need your money, Aunt. Elizabeth is my friend and when you insulted her, you insulted me, and my judgment, too. I will happily go; I am only sorry to be leaving Anne."

When they saw Anne, Darcy only said he'd had a fight with his aunt and couldn't stay. But Anne had surprised them by asking to go too.

"You had a fight about her?" Anne asked from the front passenger seat. "This gets better and better. This is the point in the romantic comedy when the leading man comes to understand he loves the leading lady! I must hear the whole story."

While Gigi filled Anne in, Darcy couldn't keep his mind on the story. Instead he was thinking about Elizabeth and trying to imagine Elizabeth talking with Jane in the house._ Are they talking about me? Surely by now Elizabeth knows I am sorry about what I did to Charles and Jane. But all is well that ends well, isn't it?_Darcy pictured sitting next to Elizabeth at the Thanksgiving table, hearing her warm laugh, having her smile when he passed her the potatoes, being lost in her coffee brown eyes.

Maybe they would play board games in the evening. If they played Ticket to Ride, he would do his best not to block her train routes. If they played Monopoly, he would sell her the property she needed at the original price; he might even sneak a deep yellow five hundred dollar bill into her money stash when she wasn't looking. But if she challenged him to cribbage or chess, he would play his best.

Darcy imagined taking Elizabeth, Gigi and Anne in the SUV to go black Friday shopping, even going Thanksgiving evening. He hated crowds, traffic, long lines, the whole thing. There was nothing he needed to buy that way; he would rather pay the full price or more to avoid that chaos. But he rather thought that Anne would find the novelity appealing and he would do anything to spend time with Elizabeth.

Darcy didn't know if Elizabeth liked Black Friday shopping, but maybe she did. He pictured holding her bags, even her red and black polka-dotted purse. He would do it for her. While he might run to the Lincoln to deposit the presents in its cavernous back, he would not hang out in the vehicle, not unless she joined him, burned out while Gigi tried this thing and that. But if Anne had enough, he would stay in the SUV with her, so Gigi and Elizabeth didn't need to miss out. It would all be worth it if Elizabeth paid him back with just one beautiful smile.

But perhaps she would be the sort of person who would stay home. The Bingleys, his sister and cousin might all go, leaving him to take a walk with Elizabeth to explore the property. Afterwards, they have a heart-to-heart in front of a roaring fire while drinking hot chocolate with plenty of marshmallows that he prepared, stirred with the candy canes he bought at their last stop. Gigi loved his cocoa and maybe Elizabeth would, too. He pictured her getting a drip of melted marshmallow on her lip and kissing that fluff away.

But then Darcy had an awful thought. What if Caro Bingley was there? She would hound him, follow him around like they were connected by an invisible cord, no longer than the shortest of dog leashes, _was that four feet__? _

Darcy remembered an annoying white Pomeranian his aunt kept when he was a child. Any time he visited, she peed by his feet. Then she would circle around him, often nearly tripping him, yapping, yapping forever yapping at a pitch that hurt his ears. Then, too, she seemer to take a special perverse joy in depositing poop pellets by him.

But as awful as that dog was, if he comlained enough, his aunt put her up. If only Caro could be contained so easily!


	5. Chapter 5

**Sorry for the delay. There's been lots of chaos in my household and writing has taken a backseat. My daughter is a "Lydia" and is determined to remain a Lydia; need I say more?**

**Chapter 5**

"Why didn't you tell me that Darcy would be here, too?" Elizabeth asked Jane after they separated after a long hug. Elizabeth could not decide if she was angry or not by Darcy's presence. She spent months trying to forget about him and now he had popped up again.

"I just found out this morning and I wasn't thinking about it when you called." Jane seemed to shrink as she contemplated how she had failed her sister.

Elizabeth was well familiar with what she and her dad called Jane's "puppy who accidentally piddled and is waiting to be yelled at" face and when it appeared Elizabeth knew she needed to do what she could to reassure Jane.

Jane, feeling awful about not telling her sister, proceeded to apologize. "I am sorry I didn't tell you; I should have. When Charles invited him, we had no idea you would be here, too. It isn't a problem, is it? He had a long drive to get here, all the way from his aunt's house in Nashville but if it is a problem I can get Charles to take him and his sister out to dinner. I think the Chinese restaurant in Rockville is open."

Jane, as always, was trying to soothe everyone. But Elizabeth was pretty sure that this idea was about the worst possible solution to the problem.

"No," Elizabeth replied. She was pretty sure it was a problem, but she did not want to make her problem Jane's problem as well. If she did, Jane would go from "puppy who accidentally piddled" to "puppy who was dragged to vet's office thickly scented with the fear of other animals only to be left by her human to fend for herself on an ice-cold metal examination table and given her first shots."

"I was surprised but it is fine. . . . Wait, you said Darcy and his sister, but he arrived with two women . . . Gigi and . . . well I don't remember her name."

"Oh that's right. Originally it was supposed to be just him and Gigi, but he texted Charles about another guest. I think"-whatever Jane was about to say got interrupted by the kitchen timer-"Oh, time to baste. I'd better do that. I'm on turkey duty while Charles gets his sisters settled in."

Elizabeth accompanied her sister to the kitchen and helped with the cooking. They fell into a rhythm together sharing prep duties, such as Jane peeling the potatoes with Elizabeth rinsing and chopping. They were debating the exact interpretation to be given to their grandmother's sweet potato recipe when Darcy walked into the kitchen with Gigi and Anne.

"Excuse me, Jane, I wanted to introduce you all and help if I may," Darcy said hesitantly. He did not want to intrude.

"Of course," Jane answered.

While Darcy presented Jane with a hostess gift which turned out to be a charming teapot with a pink rose design, an assortment of teas, and a large box of truffles, Elizabeth felt discomforted that he was seeing her in an old REM t-shirt with her hair up in a messy bun. Between the heat of the kitchen and working hard, she had come to feel sticky and knew she was a bit sweaty and flushed. She hoped she didn't have any pit stains; _that would be so embarrassing!_

Elizabeth noticed that Darcy was impeccably dressed, his blue oxford shirt crisp and well cut, the sleeves perfectly rolled up, his tan slacks with the perfect crease. His hair was longer than she remembered and she felt the dark waves suited him. She even noticed his Apple watch on his tanned wrist and his well formed hands with nicely trimmed nails.

His sister Gigi, gave her a friendly smile and nod. She was even taller than Elizabeth remembered and looked more like a soon-to-be college student than the gangly teen she met in New York, with more of a sense of style. Gigi was likewise well turned out, wearing a longish seafoam tunic top of nubbly silk with two long strands of freshwater pearls, which were the nicest example of them that Elizabeth had ever seen, fitted pants and tall suede boots which Elizabeth doubted she could ever buy herself even with her entire paycheck from the bookstore. Gigi's long honey blonde hair and outfit conjured up images of the sea and made Elizabeth think that a mermaid turned human mught dress this way.

The mysery woman had wavy blonde hair framing her perfectly symetrical face, robin egg blue eyes and a cute little nose dotted with a few freckles. She gave them a wide grin showing off her movie star white and even teeth, and announced, "I would love to help but I've never cooked before, but I think I might be good; I've watched a lot of cooking shows and my mom says I would be a natural."

Elizabeth didn't know what to make of this comment. If someone else had said it, she would have thought it was a joke, but she had a feeling she was sincere. Perhaps it was because the mysery woman was wearing an eclectic ensemble of what appeared to be a designer thick fake (or at least Elizabeth hoped it was fake) ermine fur coat (complete with dangling black tipped tails) which fell to almost her knees, a Vineyard Vines holiday shirt and Frozen pajama bottoms (with many grinning Olafs), with red and yellow stripped socks emerging from fluffy cold-weather Crocs.

"If you want to help, we should put that coat up," Elizabeth told her. Anne nodded, pushed her arms back and waited until Elizabeth understood that Anne was waiting for her to take her coat off, like a child might. She removed it,_ if this is a fake it is the best fake fur I have ever felt_, and put it in Jane's bedroom. When Elizabeth returned, she noticed that Anne was model thin.

_If Darcy is dating her, he really has changed_, Elizabeth thought to herself. She was relieved when Darcy introduced her as his cousin Anne de Bourgh. The pieces were starting to come together in Elizabeth's head.

Jane discussed the remaining dishes to be prepared. Anne immediately responded, "I can try to make the gravy," but Darcy shook his head "no."

Gigi volunteered, "Gravy would be a waste of your talents, Anne. I've made gravy from stock a couple of times now; do you like to use flour or corn starch?" That should have been reassurance enough but but Jane and Elizabeth waited for Darcy's nod before Jane got Gigi a slotted spoon to remove the giblets and now mushy veggies, the corn starch and a tablespoon while Anne watched.

While Anne was distracted, Darcy grabbed Elizabeth's hand and tugged her outside the kitchen and through a sliding glass door and out onto a patio, an entreating look on his face. Elizabeth had a momentary fantasy that Darcy was going to voice his renewed desire to date her and might even now be determined to give her a kiss (and she was not all that adverse to either possible action, although she would have preferred to be wearing something more appropriate for such an occasion and not be worrying if she smelled). Darcy saw something of this on her face but mentally shook himself out of the fantasy of embracing and pressing his unfortunatedly chapped lips, _now where is my chapstick?, _to get back to the business at hand.

"Anne needs something super easy, so she can feel like she contributed, but something that is hard to mess up. Do you have any rolls she can warm? She could probably set the table."

"All right. We have crescent rolls and one of us will help her with that."

Darcy said, "That should work." He slid the door open and waited for Elizabeth to enter first. He watched with admiration her swaying hips in her tight jeans, forgetting momentarily to follow her in.

_I've got to get__ ahold of myself!_ he thought stridently. _I'm a guest in her sister's house; start with being her friend, that's what was working in the city and probably where I went wrong the first time. _Darcy took a couple of deep breaths before joining the others.

When Darcy returned he saw that Jane was already helping Anne, so he asked Elizabeth what was left and volunteered to make the salad.

Elizabeth gathered up the greens, canned mandarin oranges, the bowl of pomegranate seeds she had previously meticulously plucked from two pomegranates, feta, candied pecans and a bottle of Newman's Own balsamic vinaigrette.

Darcy wrinkled his brow at the bottle of dressing and said, "No offense to the Bingleys or to Cool Hand Luke, funding charities is great, but you wouldn't mind, would you, if I made my own dressing, assuming the Bingleys have the ingredients I need to spare?"

Of course neither Elizabeth nor Jane minded. Just then Jane was called away when the disembodied voice of Caro Bingley stridently called, "Jane, I _neeeed_ you now!"

Elizabeth was curious as to what dressing Darcy would make, but immediately had to check on Anne who had just exclaimed, "Elizabeth, can you please help!?"

Elizabeth found Anne trying to use a can opener to get the metal end off one tube of Pillsbury Crescent Rolls. "I think there is something wrong with this can opener!" Anne exclaimed.

Elizabeth showed her how to open the cardboard canister and watched Anne's eyes widen and her body pull back a little, startled, when the canned popped open and the dough swelled out. Anne seemed mystified as to what do next, so Elizabeth showed her the directions and walked her through each stage until there was a rolled up triangle on her tray.

Anne dutifully made her own roll. As she did so she announced, "It feels sticky and squishy, kind of like Play Dough."

"Well, dough is in the name and these rolls _are _refrigerated dough."

Elizabeth didn't get to hear whatever Anne's response would have been because just then Jane reentered the kitchen, with the "puppy goes to the vet" expression on her face.

"What's wrong, Jane?"

"I've got to check the turkey, it should be done."

Elizabeth waited while Jane removed the turkey from the oven, checked the thigh and stuffing thermometers and covered the turkey on stove top with tented foil, letting Jane decide when to continue the discussion.

"Apparently I was unprepared to host guests."

"What did Caro do this time?" Elizabeth's fists were balled up.

"Nothing, I just didn't expect that I was supposed to supply her with a hair dryer. She is very particular. She didn't like the dryer I had and I guess I've been drying my hair wrong all these years as I don't have a defuser. Right now she is trying to talk Charles into running out to buy her a new one. He would do it, too, but I can't see where he would find one at three. Stores are closed and won't open for the early Black Friday shopping until later and I've never even heard of the brand she wants. Also, now that the turkey's done, we can eat in half an hour."

Just then Charles burst in. After all the needed greetings and introductions were made, he said, "I don't know what to do, Jane. Caro is very insistent that I go and go now."

He looked over at Darcy, gave a half smile and added, "It is your fault, you know. She wasn't bothered about her hair before she found out you would be here."

"I have an idea," Darcy announced, grinning a little at his own cleverness, "tell her that all the New York society ladies I know are letting their hair air dry these days."

"It is true," Gigi proclaimed before giving a cheeky grin at her brother and adding, "I'm probably the only New York society lady that he knows and I never blow dry my hair. It makes it frizz."

"Or you are too lazy," Darcy added, giving Gigi's shoulder a little squeeze.

"That, too." She grinned, not at all offended.

"Great idea, Darcy," Charles told him, offering a thumbs up before sauntering out more confidently to give Caro the good news.

A few moments later they heard Caro's response, though of Charles's half of the conversation they couldn't make out much more than the tone of his voice. Caro exclaimed, "But Charlie, I can't possibly have Darcy see me with wet hair!" And then more quietly (but in a pouty tone), "I guess I won't wash my hair at all." And then, "Half an hour! That's not nearly enough time! Why can't we eat Thanksgiving dinner at six like normal people do?" More indistinct sounds followed by, "I don't care if the turkey will be ready then, I can't possibly be ready then. Why my nails alone will take that long."

Charles replied loudly enough for them to hear, "We are eating when it is ready, with or without you."


	6. Chapter 6

**So this is a Caroline-centric chapter which I never expected to be so long (boy does Caroline like to be the center of attention). Don't worry, in the next chapter we will finally get to the Thanksgiving dinner.**

**Chapter 6**

Caroline Bingley was frustrated, her weekend was just not turning out how she had expected it. She knew it was all well and good to come visit Charles and his wife for Thanksgiving with Louisa and Q. She thought she was being practical in going, telling herself, _I must keep up family relationships, as I never know when I may need them. _She ignored the fact (as it would be evidence that she was weak, that she actually had a heart rather than an icicle in her chest) that she really did want to see her brother and even Jane.

Traveling on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, had been a nightmare for Caro. She had to wake up at the ungodly hour of 3 am to be at the Newark Airport by 4 am for the 6:20 flight and naturally she had trouble going to sleep the night before. Finally she slept for a couple of hours before suddenly jolting awake at around 2 am, a dream vivid before her. In the dream, she was going to her bed and in the process of pulling her blue covers down to climb in, she found it was already occupied by her dad, who was dressed like Santa Claus in a saggy red suit unbuttoned to his navel, with a fake beard of cotton balls, the top of his head (sans Santa hat) faintly shining by candlelight, and three small women about half his size wearing matching red and green striped pajamas with elf hats, each holding a doll in their arms. Two of the dolls were expensive American Girl dolls in period clothes (a girl and a boy) and the remaining girl doll was a very cheap knock-off, naked, showing her poorly formed limbs with tags of plastic where they inserted into her body, her painted brown eyes chipped and slightly askew.

It was obvious to Caroline just what that dream was about; it was about how she, her sister and her brother all had different moms and how it made Caroline feel about herself. While lying in bed, waiting for sleep to claim her again, Caroline traveled through memories. She started with remembering her childhood bedroom in their rental house. It was a ghastly shade of Pepto-Bismol pink alternating with stripes of Barney the Dinosaur purple. The stripes were created by painting alternate fake wood panels with each color. On one wall, right over her bed which had Little Mermaid sheets and a bright blue blanket, there was an 8x10 photo of Caroline with her father in a plastic dollar store frame.

Caroline could perfectly recreate the picture in her mind in the dark of Louisa's guest room. Her father, Charles Bingley, who her mother called Chaz, was wearing a dark suit with a white shirt and a green tie. A black wool overcoat hung open, with a brown and green plaid cashmere scarf loosely arranged over it. He had on black leather gloves but was not wearing a hat. His thinning red hair, streaked with some white hairs, flared out over his high pink forehead was somewhat windswept but he was standing very erect, confidently. Mr. Bingley was standing next to her in the snow holding her white mittened hand. Caroline guessed she was two or three at the time. She was wearing a light pink coat which was far too big for her, and the hood with its thin white fake-fur edging drooped far down and between it and the purple crocheted scarf she was wearing, almost her entire face was obscured but for her eyes and nose. She could not tell if she was smiling or not. Her father had a slight smile that did not show his teeth. She could not tell if he was actually happy or not. She spent so much time studying the people in the picture that it was years before she thought to ask her mother about the setting, a park with fluffy, leafy trees with concrete buildings behind it.

When she finally did, her mother explained, "When I found out I was expecting you, your dad was long gone; he'd gone back to New York City. But I knew the company he worked for so I figured I would be able to find him with some work. After you were born, I started trying to find Chaz, but I was busy trying to take care of you and New York City is a big place. I finally got some help from a local librarian and was able to get an address for his business. I sent him a letter with a picture of you. It took him a long time to write back, but he said it was your hair that convinced him that you were his. Later I drove all day to bring you to meet him. I remember being shocked by how much it cost to park my car in a parking lot. The picture is of the two of you in Central Park, near Strawberry Fields."

Caroline asked, "Why didn't you marry my dad?"

Her mother answered, "It wasn't like that. Chaz already had a family. He was just having fun, we both were; neither of us expected anything to come from it. But he did right by you; he sends money every month."

When Caroline was eleven, one evening she was eagerly talking to her mother about her scheduled school field trip to the roller skating rink the next day. Her mother had just given her a five dollar bill for snacks and Caroline was aware of the feel of the folded up bill in her jeans pocket and kept reaching into her pocket to caress her the bill, to reassure herself that it was still there.

Then, oddly enough, Caroline's mother told her, "You know you don't have to let a guy get in your pants just because he buys you a nice dinner." Caroline was confused, no one was taking her to dinner, and thanks to her mom she had enough money for her own snacks. Caroline didn't understand why her mother brought this up now, but then she thought that perhaps it was because she had been talking about the couples skate and if a boy from her class, Michael, might want to skate it with her.

Never one to let an opportunity to learn more about how she came to be pass her by (as after each new piece of the puzzle her mother typically clammed up again), Caroline asked, "Is that how you got me?"

"Well sort of." Her mom settled herself down on the couch beside Caroline, which was a sign that she was ready for a long talk and would not put her off. "I was young and dumb, only 19. Chaz wasn't like those young men that wait weeks to even come talk to you and then don't know what to say. I was working at a Waffle House and he stopped in at around 3 pm for a meal. He gave me a big grin when I took his order and when I brought it back to him he asked, 'When do you get off?' I told him and he said, 'Sweetheart, you've been working hard all day, a beautiful girl like you shouldn't have to work so hard and just to get lousy tips. Let me take you out for a proper meal so you can be waited on like you deserve.' I hesitated and while I was hesitating Chaz pulled out a money clip with a thick roll of cash and laid down a twenty and said, 'Keep the change.' I remember he only spent two or three dollars on his meal (he may have only gotten a pecan waffle) which meant it was the biggest tip I had ever gotten in my three months working there. I knew he was old enough to be my dad, likely older than that, and I saw the ring on his finger, but I liked his confidence so I accepted.

"Your father took me out to the best restaurant around. He talked to me about his business dealings and about growing up in Indiana like I did. Chaz did not talk down to me and he was patient when I asked him questions about his business (he was negotiating to buy a chain of hotels and keep the owners on as managers). After a three course meal he told me, 'Jennifer, I am going to take you back to my motel in Indy and we can work off that cheesecake.' I didn't say anything. I knew I could tell him 'no' but I liked that he was decisive, knew what he wanted and it felt special that who he wanted right then was me."

"You mean you slept with Dad the same day that you met him? My mom had a one-night stand?"

"Yes, but no. I mean I was with him that night, but he did like me. He kept seeing me the whole week he was in town for business, picking me up from Waffle House which was forty-five minutes away from where he was staying."

"I am never going to let someone use me like that," Caroline proclaimed. It was icky to imagine the man from the photo hugging and kissing her mother in a bed, even if she did not quite know what sex was from the movies she had seen, besides the technical description she had gotten in school.

"Well, Caroline, I guess you I think you are smarter than I was and maybe you are, but never is a long time."

A few months later, Caroline met her father for the first time that she was old enough to remember it when he was in Indianapolis on business. She remembered being so excited when he came to the door and almost launched herself into his arms before recollecting herself and pulling up short (he had not held his arms out like she had imagined a father would, instead he only gave her a slight smile and asked, "Is your mother ready yet?").

During the whole dinner, she felt like her parents were on a date and she was the interloper. While her mother tried to talk about Caroline, her father seemed much more interested in flirting with her mother than getting to know Caroline. Chaz said things like, "Jennifer, you haven't aged a day, you are still as beautiful as you were on the day I met you. If things had been different . . . but Mimi is a good woman and has stuck by me."

It was at this dinner that Caroline first learned she had a brother. She had been zoning out, trying to eat her risotto slowly, as her parents had done a lot more talking than eating and she did not want to be left with an empty plate, when she heard her father say, "Perhaps Caroline ought to visit me this summer; it would be good for Charlie and Mimi to meet her."

"Who are they?" Caroline asked.

"Why my son and wife. I still need to tell them about you, but Mimi is very understanding and she will have sympathy for your situation. Charlie might like having a younger sister."

When her dad brought them home (Caroline feeling unpleasantly full from having eaten a hot fudge sundae he had insisted on buying her), he asked, "May I come up, Jennifer?"

Her mother gave a nervous laugh and said, "I don't think that's the best idea Chaz." She played with her blonde hair. "You know the effect you have on me, but it wouldn't be right."

"Well, then why don't I take you out for some drinks?"

"Don't be silly, Caroline is too young to be left home alone."

"Well then we are back to you letting me come up."

"Okay then, but just to talk." While they didn't do much more than talk while Caroline was up, she did notice that her father started holding her mom's hand and before long he was rubbing her arm and staring into her eyes, completely ignoring Caroline.

Her mother giggled and then said, "Caroline, it is time to get ready for bed. Brush your teeth, get on your pajamas and then come back to say goodnight to your father."

When Caroline came back, she found her parents kissing. Her mother pulled away and told her, "Now say goodnight and go to bed."

"Goodnight Dad," Caroline told him. Distractedly he echoed, "Goodnight."

In the morning, Caroline got up and got ready for school herself as she normally did. She was just about to leave for her bus stop when she heard some noises in the kitchen and found her father there, in his underwear and an undershirt.

"Oh, hello dear," he told her, "off for school, are you?"

Caroline nodded.

"Well have a good day, dear," he told her.

As Caroline waited at the bus stop, she wondered if her father would be there where she got home. She also wondered if her father remembered her name as he had only called her "dear" that morning. He wasn't, but a few days later her mother received a letter which had a round trip ticket for Caroline.

That summer as a newly minted twelve-year-old, Caroline felt very brave riding on her first airplane by herself and resolved that no one should know she was not a seasoned traveler. She landed in Boston and was collected at the gate not by her father as she had hoped, but by a smiling woman only a few years older than her mother who said, "Hi Caroline, I'm Mimi, and will be your summer mom. You can call me Mom or Mom-too, or you can even call me Mimi, but please don't call me Mrs. Bingley; you are family." Without giving Caroline an opportunity she gave her a big hug, drawing her tightly into her fluffy short-sleeved sweater.

Caroline liked Mimi right away, but she was confused how blase Mimi seemed to be that she was the product of an affair. Caroline could never decide whether it had never bothered Mimi or whether she was just quick to forgive and forget. The only slight allusion to it was when Mimi mentioned, "You are so beautiful Caroline; I bet your mother is, too."

Mimi drove her to the Bingley summer home in Cape Cod in a convertible, first helping Caroline tie a bright scarf around her hair like they were movie stars, like that actress did in _The Birds_. Mimi drove fast and provided happy chatter, finding out all about Caroline and where she grew up. Caroline met her brother, a gangly teenager who seemed to be the male version of Mimi not in looks but because of his sunny personality, at the house (which was more mansion than house). While Caroline had hoped to spend a lot of time with her dad and brother, she ended up spending it mostly with Mimi. Although she saw him for dinner that day, mostly Mr. Bingley seemed to be living in Manhattan and only coming to Boston some weekends. Her brother was busy playing tennis and golf, neither of which Caroline was at all proficient in, despite his best attempts to teach her, and going out with his friends while Caroline played board games with Mimi who apparently had the impression that she was still a little kid and wanted to play Operation, Life and Trouble. Mimi also took her shopping and got her expensive clothes. She told Caroline, "I always wanted a daughter."

It was a couple weeks into that first visit when Caroline started looking through a while photo album tucked in a bookshelf. It turned out to be a wedding album from when her father married Mimi. It was obvious to Caroline that Mimi was pregnant in the picture, although she was cutely pregnant with a basketball bulge rather than looking ready to pop. In one of the pictures there was a young girl with her father and step mother, who was holding a basket of flowers.

"Who is that?" Caroline asked Mimi, pointing to the girl.

"Oh, the flower girl? That's your big sister, Louisa. She's from your dad's first wife." And that was how Caroline first learned she had a sister.

Caroline started putting together the pieces of how she, her sister and brother came to be during that visit, but her brother did not know why their father had divorced his first wife. She spent hours asking her brother Charlie about her sister before he finally volunteered, "Why don't we call her? Maybe she can come down for a visit."

Oddly enough when they called, Louisa hadn't known she had a sister either. When Caroline got off the phone with Louisa she asked Charlie, "Why didn't we know about each other before?"

"I dunno," he answered, "maybe because Dad is close lipped about such things. I only found out about you a few months ago. For all I know he has a bunch more children out there."

Later on in the summer, Louisa came to visit for two weeks. She was in college but still took the time to take Caroline to the movies and shopping. They kept in contact and Louisa always remembered to get Caroline something for Christmas and her birthday.

When Caroline moved to New York City at age 18, it was Louisa who met her at the airport and helped her set up her dorm room at Barnard College. Caroline was grateful for Louisa and she always had been. This Thanksgiving trip was a typical example. Louisa had made all the arrangements, including invited her to stay with them the night before so that they could all go to the airport together.

Caroline was not able to go back to sleep, or at best had only fitfully dozed before the beep Beep BEEP BEEP! of the alarm made her roll out of bed and begin getting dressed. Minutes later, a sleepy Caroline, Louisa and Q were climbing in a car service sedan for the ride to Newark, their suitcases stowed in the trunk. Caroline was trying to get her makeup down during the drive, which wasn't easy while the driver tried to get them to the airport in record speed. Caroline managed to apply makeup a piece at a time each time they were stopped at a stoplight; foundation, eye shadow, eye liner, mascara, blush each were added in sequence. But then when there was nothing left to do, Caroline began analyzing what it meant to be her father's third child with the wisdom of an adult.

Unlike when she was a child, Caroline now understood that her father's first marriage failed because he became too successful too quick and had resented being tied to the ordinary woman, Molly, who had put him through school. Molly was a "starter wife" who had Louisa just as soon as Chaz took over supporting the family with his accounting degree. From what Caroline could gather, her father was ambitious and not satisfied with living an ordinary life. He began investing their money in the stock market and became very successful day trading. Somehow he then parlayed his skill into starting his very own investment brokerage house where he made bank by making rich people even richer and also grew his own money further by acquiring other businesses.

Soon enough Chaz senior traded Molly in for a younger and hotter trophy wife. The new model was Mimi, the daughter of one of those rich men. She was twenty-three and he was forty-two when they met, marrying after his quickie divorce in which he settled a third of his net worth on Molly with a fat trust fund for Louisa, who was five at the time. It was necessary as Mimi was already six months gone with Charles junior.

Caroline had trouble respecting her mother when she learned how she came to be. Caroline learned the story piecemeal as she grew up. As she often reflected back on it from the perspective of the adult she had become, she thought, _It would have been one thing if Mom had made a calculated choice to get pregnant and bleed my rich father for all she could in child support, or to parley their interaction into becoming his mistress and having him set her up in a posh apartment in New York City, but instead Mom settled for taking whatever scraps he gave her, gave us, and was oddly proud of it._

The traffic to the airport was heavy even though it was early yet, and when they finally were dropped at the curb, they discovered the airport was packed. The line to even check her bag outside on Delta, was more than twenty people long. "You are going to wait with me aren't you?" Caroline asked Louisa.

Louisa shook her head in negation. "I told you that you shouldn't check a bag, Caro. We only packed carry-ons and getting through security will take a long time, so making the flight could be tight with this other line. Hopefully you'll get through alright and we'll meet you at the gate."

Caroline scowled, but did not protest. She knew where the line lay in pushing her sister too far and (a very small part of her admitted) she knew it wasn't right to insist on her sister waiting with her. Her feet were protesting, however, as they had been forced into two inch high heels which were a half a size too small. She knew they weren't practical (though they were more practical than the three and a half inch heels she had been considering that made her legs look amazing), and had almost worn her running shoes instead, but that little nagging thought of _What if someone important is in the airport?_ had made her wear them with her designer jeans. As a result Caroline had been forced to wait in the huge security line by herself and joy of joys, not, a family with a passel of children was right in front of her.

Caroline didn't mind children in principle. She could even imagine having a child herself, a lovely blonde girl who looked and acted like the children on catalogue pages: clean, well dressed and looking adoringly up at the mother who had dressed them that way. _If I ever have a daughter_, Caroline reflected, _she will get into the best schools, make friends with important people and shatter all those glass ceilings, but the only way to make that happen is to get her the right father! _Caroline felt that rather than clawing at her own glass ceilings that she'd been trying to climb an entire building made of glass, unable to find purchase after the first couple of floors. There was so much old money in New York and despite the vocal lessons which had tamed her Midwest accent, and getting her masters at NYU, she wasn't anyone to those who mattered. And beneath that thought, which she never wished to acknowledge to anyone, not even herself, was that her father hadn't cared to know much more about her than what was readily accessible on the surface.

Caroline tried to distract herself from her morose thoughts and her rising panic that she might not be able to get to the gate in time by focusing on the family in front of her. She noted that the four children in front of her in line, none of whom appeared to be older than ten, were nothing like placid catalog children and certainly nobodies. Caroline had plenty of time to study them because the line was so slow. Each child who was walking bore a small backpack with a super hero or Disney character and they were all still wearing pajamas, but they weren't the matching, pristine pajamas Caroline had seen on an Old Navy commercial (although those were of course terribly gauche Caroline could see a bit of charm in that). No, these children were wearing pajamas where even their own tops and bottoms did not match, with one girl wearing a Ninja Turtle top with a Tinkerbell bottom. At least the ambulatory children were blessedly quiet as all the children, save the youngest who was being pushed by his mom in a stroller, sucked on candy canes.

The younger girl of the two girls noticed Caroline looking at her and proclaimed, "Look, my candy cane fits where my tooth was; I can close my teeth and still suck on it!"

She demonstrated and Caroline despite her inclination to remain an aloof traveler, replied, "That's cool. Do you know you can suck through a straw through that spot also?"

The girl nodded and grinned, showing off her missing front tooth and the other adult tooth which was just beginning to emerge.

Caroline was preparing to have a protracted conversation with this girl; it seemed inevitable. The line was slow and she and the girl were both bored. She did not much look forward to the inanities they might exchange, but it just might distract her from her aching feet. But just then, the girl's mother said, "Lucy, try not to bother our fellow travelers. Sorry, Miss."

Caroline declined to try to maintain the conversation by giving the traditional, "She's no bother at all," but she still oddly felt bereft.

Suddenly the baby in the stroller started wailing and the mother suddenly stopped as she worked to free him from the stroller. Caroline got a good view of him, or at least she thought it was a him judging from his blue sleeper as the mother worked to soothe him. Rapidly his wailing progressed to screaming. The mom told her husband (who was in front of the children, apparently to hem them in), "I think Edmund is trying to poop." Just then a loud sound, a wet slurpy, gurgly sound, erupted from the baby.

_Edmund? _It wasn't that unusual of a name, but still a theory began to form in her mind about what the other children might be named.

Edmund stopped his crying and then the smell hit Caroline. It was horrible, truly horrible, reminding her of the stink the one and only one time she had been forced to use a Honey Bucket at a fair when she was a child, but she was trapped in the long weaving line with this family with no place to go. The mom looked around, too, apparently wishing to escape to change the baby, but she was stuck, also. "I'm so sorry Miss," the woman addressed Caroline and then looking around said, "and all of you; babies have their own timing."

The other passengers behaved like typical New Yorkers (which is what most of them were even though the airport was in New Jersey) and ignored her apology, but as the woman's warm brown eyes met Caroline's, Caroline commented, almost against her own will, "I understand. I hope he is not too uncomfortable."

Apparently the current state of affairs was upsetting the baby, as Edmund began crying again, a discontented sound rather than the prior frantic wail. Just then the line started moving again and the mother tried to pull the stroller one handed while holding the baby.

Caro could see what a disaster that was immediately and found herself oddly enough volunteering, "I can push the stroller for you, ma'am."

"Oh thank you!" the woman gushed, giving her a bright smile. But Caro soon recognized that no good deed goes unpunished for now as Caro pushed, the woman seemed compelled to chat. Caroline tried not to pay much attention, thinking, _Why should I listen to her, it is not as if she is anyone important or anyone I will meet again. _But then when the woman said something about her daughter Susan, Caroline wondered,_ was it possible that this mom had named her four children after the children in a Lion a Witch and a Wardrobe? _She couldn't help but satisfy her curiosity, asking "By any chance is your other son Peter?"

The woman replied, "Well it seems as if you have found me out." She spent the next ten minutes talking about how much the Narnia books had meant to her as a child, all the while waving the disgustingly smelly infant around near Caro to try to get him to stop crying. More juicy sounds burst forth from the child and Caro was hit with another wave of stink, but at least mercifully Edmund ceased crying again. However, she saw the spreading wave of brown soaking through the back of his sleeper and felt compelled to point it out to the woman, who told her, "Oh, thank you. You are so kind. You are like my guardian angel today. Most New Yorkers would just ignore our plight. You aren't from New York originally, are you?"

Caro was saved an answer (she was embarrassed by her Indiana roots), as the mother plucked a light blanket from the stroller and wrapped it around the baby to cover the stain and crooned to Edmund in the tones that some women used with children and others with dogs, "We are going to have a lot of stinkys with us today, aren't we? I hope your three outfits are enough to get us to Memaw's house!"

They had another twenty minutes together which the mother used to try to get to know Caroline. Caroline found herself giving the woman her name, "Caroline Bingley, but I prefer Caro."

The woman thought to herself, _Karo? Like Karo corn syrup? Who would want to be called that? _but was far too kind-hearted to voice that comment, instead saying, "Oh, but Honey, Caroline is a beautiful name, just like that Caroline Ingalls and you are just as kind as her. I have an old fashioned name myself, Margaret; some people call me Maggie, but I like the full name. But Caroline, why are you trying to be someone you are not, dressing this way and all?" the woman gestured to Caroline's outfit.

Caroline had no answer or at least not one that she wanted to tell Margaret. Caroline wanted to be the best but she always had a sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach that she would never measure up. It seemed like there was always someone smarter, prettier and more cut-throat in the city; a woman who smiled to your face and remembered your cat's name, might be the first to stab you in the back and these were the people who got ahead. It was why Caroline always took such care of her appearance and tried so hard to be successful at her job, her first real job since graduating from her masters program the year before.

Although Caroline was not yet twenty-three, she was already considering if she might benefit from Botox, and she was also pondering if she should get a breast enlargement. She diligently ran every day to keep in shape even though she mostly hated the activity (although she liked it when there were scenic vistas to distract her from how her muscles burned), and carefully watched everything she consumed, but being slim also meant she had a smaller bust.

One good thing came out of the debacle with the large family. Airport security allowed her to follow the family through the non-full body scanner line (she supposed because they thought her an aunt or something as she was still pushing the stroller) and she had not had remove her shoes. That was a good thing as it might have been hard to get them back on. But even after passing security, the mom apparently thought that Caroline was her personal helper as she asked, "Caroline, can you push the stroller to the next restroom? Eddie has his hands full." Caro saw that the handsome man with chocolate hair who had apparently produced all these infants, was carrying the toddler, Peter, while he held hands with Lucy and used his voice to compel Susan to stay near. Caroline wondered if the father was an Edmund, too. She also wondered what name the woman would choose if she had another child; she hoped for the sake of any future child that it would not be Eustace, which sounded way too much like useless.

"Of course," Caroline said; she did not see any way she could get out of this task without being incredibly rude and it was obvious the woman needed help.

"Potty break girls," the mom yelled and the two girl children ran over to their mom. Fortunately the restroom was not too far away and it was even in the direction of the gate Caroline needed to reach. The mom wrenched open the family restroom door she and her daughters went in. Caro wasn't sure what to do, but the mom answered her question by pushing the door back open and saying, "Come on in."

Caroline found herself wheeling the stroller into the family restroom, but then excused herself as politely as she could, "It was nice meeting you, Margaret."

She walked to the gate and met up with Louisa and Q, thinking that she would never see Margaret again, but God or the universe or fate had other ideas, for who should she see just before family boarding was announced but Margaret and her family, little Edmund now happily cooing and flashing his gummy, toothless smile. But still, Caroline didn't think this was too much of a coincidence until she got on the plane and found that her window seat was not next to Louisa and Q as she had anticipated, but next to Lucy and Margaret, with Edmund sitting on Margaret's lap.

"Louisa!" Caroline called to her sister just behind her, "I think these people have the wrong seats. I am 23A and aren't you B and C?"

"I knew you weren't listening when I told you that the flight was almost sold out and we didn't have seats together; Q and I are in 34 B and C. We'll see you after the flight."

"Can't I trade with Q?" Caroline asked desperately. Margaret was nice enough but Carolina did not want to be stuck next to the pooping wonder.

Louisa glanced at the other occupants of row 23. "Not a chance."

But the flight had not been so bad as little Edmund had slept almost the entire time (after Margaret nursed him, which Caroline did her best to pretend was not happening) and Lucy was watching some movie on an I-Pad. Somehow after hours of chit-chat, with Margaret asking Caroline adroit detail about her upbringing, Caroline found herself confiding in Margaret, bit by bit. The information first dripped out like a drizzle. She told Margaret how she missed her father, had not expected him to die so young. "He was the first one who called me Caro. I don't think he liked that my mom named me Caroline."

But then the drizzle soon became a downpour. Caroline told Margaret about being the child of an affair, about growing up being raised by a single mom and about getting a first glimpse at age 12 about how privileged her father and siblings were. She told Margaret about how she had always wanted to earn her father's approval and to become someone important herself.

"I became an accountant because my dad was one, too. I thought if I could prove myself that he might help me along in my career, that I might even succeed him someday, but instead when he died the company went to my brother Charles who has no business acumen. It was a good thing he sold it off, because he would have tanked it, but still to see my father's hard work reduced into just a sale number, that was hard. And so I lost my father and my dreams all in one year, but I think my sister and brother don't understand what it was like for me, because I didn't spend as much time with Dad as they did. I know I shouldn't be resentful. My father did pay for me to go to college and left me some money, I am set up well enough with a trust fund, but I wanted him to care about me, to see my value, and now that chance is gone forever. Maybe all children who are raised by a single mom feel that way."

"Oh, Caroline," Margaret gave her hand a squeeze. It was rather familiar of her, but Caroline knew that she herself had greatly exceeded the bounds of polite airplane conversation, found that oddly enough she did not mind. Suddenly, Caroline found herself leaning into Margaret, which was awkward while being strapped in the narrow seats next to each other. But Margaret seemed more than willing to share in the awkward embrace with little Edmund asleep against her right shoulder.

Margaret said, "There, there, dear. Caroline, you have had it rough, but you are still so young. You aren't limited in who you can be, but if you hold onto resentment and make decisions out of fear you will remain stuck in a prison of your own making. Let yourself be free to find your own path in life. You are so fortunate to have siblings even if you don't always see eye-to-eye. It sounds like they have always treated you like a sister."

"That's true, but I can't help but want to be someone."

Perhaps the conversation would have continued further, but then Edmund woke up and Lucy wanted a snack and then the moment was past, with Caroline just feeling a bit embarrassed by how much she had confided in a stranger.

When their flight had landed, but they were waiting to taxi, Margaret pressed her card into Caroline's hand. "I think I may have a job opportunity for you."

"Thank you for the offer," Caroline said, "but I have a job and I would be a lousy nanny."

"I don't think you would be a lousy nanny, you are a caring enough person, but that wasn't what a had in mind. I am not sure if it would be right for you, but I would like to talk to you more about it."

Caroline thanked her and shoved the card without even looking at it into her purse. They parted warmly and Caroline felt emotionally rung out. Perhaps it was confiding in Margaret, perhaps it was just the dream and the complete lack of sleep.

Then of course it turned out that Caroline's suitcase had not made it to Indiana. She was stuck with the clothes she was wearing, her purse (which had her makeup and a book for the flight that she had never even opened) and her coat. After filing out a form, Caroline rejoined her sister and brother in law who were impatiently waiting for her. Although Louisa didn't say a word that was not sympathetic, Caroline could help but hear in her mind Louisa's voice saying, "You should have brought a carry on instead."

When they finally made it to Charles's house, Caroline was in a mood, and Caroline in a mood was a right terror. She was mad and everything and everybody. And of course Charles and Jane were the easiest targets, especially when Caroline found out that Darcy was coming.


	7. Chapter 7

**I'm sorry it has been a while since the last chapter. I appreciate all of your reviews. And now we have finally gotten to the Thanksgiving dinner and its aftermath.**

**Chapter 7**

Darcy barely noticed the prayer or the Thanksgiving food (for all that he dished some on his plate). He kept passing the dishes that Gigi set down until she whispered in his left ear, "Everything has already been around, let it be!"

While Darcy had tuned out most everything going on around him, he was hyper-aware of Elizabeth, who was sitting right across from him. Although he did his best to pretend to be paying attention to everyone, it was hopeless. Darcy tried to participate in the conversation that flowed around him, but felt his comments were inane. Darcy was too distracted from being in Elizabeth's presence. He kept trying not to stare at Elizabeth, but had already memorized how her dark curls hung around her shoulders in errant corkscrews, tousled from their release from her earlier bun. He noticed how the candlelight bounced off a strand that curved around her neck and hung down the front magenta cotton blouse which she had substituted just before dinner for her faded t-shirt. He noticed that the blouse was graced with an orange and yellow leaf motif, with a keyhole neckline tied with two long strands of the same material with little yellow pompoms on each end that gently bobbed when she passed each dish. He noticed the soft pink of her lip glossed lips, and her rosy cheeks, pinked from working on the dinner. She wore no makeup, besides her lip gloss, but he felt that she was perfect just as she was.

Elizabeth was also very aware of Darcy, but she was not as run away with her feelings. She did notice, however, that remembering how handsome Darcy was from a memory was nothing to seeing the man in person when he was looking right at her. She wished they were not separated by so many dishes and candles.

From the foot of the table, Jane noticed how Darcy and her sister kept looking at each other. She and Charles exchanged knowing looks. They had pondered before whether his best friend and her favorite sister might not be able to make a go of it, if they could ever get past the misunderstandings from before.

Darcy chewed mechanically, making sure his mouth was closed, but he barely tasted the mashed potatoes or any of the other dishes. Even the turkey with the added zip of the cranberry sauce which was for some inexplicable reason (which he did not even feel a faint need to explore), Pepto Bismol pink, barely engaged his interest past the first bite. He did not even notice that Caro had not appeared until she alighted in the empty chair on his left side, laid a hand on his shoulder that had fingernails painted brown and said, "I am so glad to see you. Finally, some good society! Oh, and hello Gigi."

Darcy felt the slight in her words that was directed at everyone besides him and his sister, but seemed most specifically meant to needle Elizabeth. He began to pass dishes to Caroline and even through his daze noticed that she put only the smallest dollops of her plate. Darcy was holding the bowl of rolls, waiting for her to accept it, whether or not she would actually take a roll from the pile, when he heard her gasp: "What on earth is this ghastly thing?"

Darcy who had not noticed anything about the rolls (despite the early praise of them from his earlier dining partners who were anxious to be kind to Anne), but for the fact that he knew he had eaten one, glanced at Caroline. He was perplexed as to what she could be talking about, until she elaborated, "Is there a toddler in the house that I did not see? Is one of Eliza's younger sisters about? Canister rolls? Really? And who made them into, well, whatever these are? They look like a primary school art project gone awry!"

He glanced at the bowl and noticed that each roll was a floppy figure in the prone position, curving left or right, which appeared to be formed from balls.

"They are snowmen!" Anne exclaimed. "I thought you all liked them!" Darcy saw her get up, a trail of tears already traveling down her face.

He started pushing his chair back to get up but he was slower than Gigi and Elizabeth, who had already gained their feet, and Gigi motioned him down when he would have stood, telling him, "We've got this."

It then fell to Darcy, rather than to console Anne, to explain to Caroline what she had done. He waited until Anne was safely ushered from the room to tell her, "You just insulted my cousin, Caro. Anne has not had much experience with the larger world and those rolls were the first thing she has baked."

"That was Anne, your cousin that keeps almost dying? Dear me, I had no idea!" The look on Caroline's face was filled with horror as she realized that her sharp tongue had hurt someone that Darcy was close to. She stood up and said, "I'll go see her and straighten the whole thing out. I was just joking. You all know that, don't you?"

Caroline looked around, appealing for someone to stand up for her, but no one did. Louisa told her, "You should sit down, Caro, you've done quite enough." Surprisingly, Caroline listened to her and did sit down. Caroline was quite subdued for the rest of the meal and did not express a single opinion even when the pink cranberry sauce was passed to her.

Jane did her best to start the conversation back up again, complementing Darcy, "Does everyone know that Darcy made the salad? He even made the dressing!"

There were several murmurs about how delicious it was and Darcy noticed that Caroline was suddenly interested in consuming the salad on her plate. She took a large bite and then exclaimed, "Darcy, this is divine!" She took several bites and tried to maintain eye contact with him as she chewed.

It was then that it occurred to him, "Caro, I am not sure you should eat that. Aren't you allergic to pecans?"

A look of horror overcame Caroline's face and she suddenly stopped chewing, her mouth freezing mid-chew. Elizabeth, who had just rejoined the table with Anne and Gigi, exclaimed, "Oh, Caro, I didn't know you had any allergies!"

Darcy gave Elizabeth a look. Although Elizabeth had said nothing improper, with even her tone of voice sounding appropriately concerned, he had the feeling that she wasn't entirely dismayed that Caroline might be on the verge of suffering an allergic reaction.

"I didn't either!" Jane added. Her concern was entirely genuine plus the dismay of a hostess having missed an important detail about what could be served to her guests. "I asked Charles if it would be okay to have pralines in the salad and he didn't say it would be a problem for anyone."

"Pralines have pecans?" Charles asked.

"Charles, don't you know anything?" Louisa asked.

Caroline got up and ran for the kitchen. Louisa who got up to help her, saw her spit the half masticated bite into the sink. Louisa found her eyes drawn to the spitty blob which still had noticeable chunks of lettuce and orange segments. It turned her stomach, just a little.

Louisa watched as Caroline rinsed her mouth out with water; when she spit out the water, it entirely missed the glob of salad in the sink. Caroline asked her, "Do you think I should try to throw up? Would that help anything?"

Louisa shrugged. Her own stomach rebelled a bit at the thought of her sister up-chucking. She had no idea whether throwing up was a good idea or not in this situation. Then she noticed something. "I'm not sure if it would help, but your lips are starting to swell."

Caroline raised a hand to her lips and felt them. "Oh no! I need my EpiPen! Now!"

"Where is your purse?" Louisa asked, but Caroline brushed past her. Her face felt tingly, itchy and tight.

Fortunately, Caroline was able to find her EpiPen, not in the main compartment of her purse but inside her makeup bag, but just held it for a moment in her shaky hands. She had never had to use it before.

Louisa rushed in, seized it from Caroline's hands and without hesitating plunged it through Caroline's pant leg. Caroline gasped a bit, it hurt! But she told Louisa simply, "Thank you. That should help, but they said if I had to use it . . . well, I think I still need to go to the E.R."

Louisa nodded and said, "I'll get Charles; he should know where to go."

Before Caroline knew it, her brother was driving her to the nearest hospital while Louisa sat in the back of the car with Caroline trying to reassure her.

Back at the Bingley house, the remaining guests and their hostess Jane did not know what to do with themselves, that is except for Quentin. Q immediately liberated the contents of a liquor cabinet and took an ample swig from a bourbon bottle without offering it to anyone first. He commented to the room at large and no one in particular, "This is quite a bit better than synthehol and it might even give bloodwine a run for its money." He waited for someone to acknowledge his Star Trek references, but when they did not, consoled himself by tipping back the bottle and taking a couple more swallows.

For something to do, Jane began clearing the table and the remaining guests helped her take the plates and silverware to the kitchen. Darcy volunteered for dish duty. While he worked on that, Jane with Elizabeth's help started boxing up the food in Tupperware. Gigi got a rag for Anne and asked her to wipe down the table. Anne did not seem to have any idea of how to go about it, but Gigi was just glad that it seemed to distract Anne. Gigi swept, repeatedly having to sweep up new crumbs that Anne pushed onto the floor.

When Anne finished wiping the table, she stood still, clutching the blue rag tightly against her Vineyard Vines shirt with its happy whale on a plaid background. Her blue eyes stared out at nothing in particular. She morosely told Gigi, "It is strange not to be the one going to the hospital, but it is sure to be me next time." She then began recounting all of the times she had gone to the hospital, which hospital, how long she was there and the various diagnoses she left with. During her recitation, gradually everyone else drifted into the dining room as they finished their tasks, all but Q who was watching season four of his Enterprise DVD boxed set on the Bingleys' big screen T.V.

Anne's current topic of conversation was really bringing everyone down more than Caroline's sudden departure had. Elizabeth in hearing the recitation had the horrible realization that this must be the cousin whom Darcy had missed her sister's wedding over. She felt very small when she realized that, telling herself, _It really wasn't about him avoiding you; he really was telling the truth. _And then, _I am such a fool._

"We've got to get Anne off of this topic," Darcy whispered to Elizabeth. She could feel his warm breath on her neck and ear and had a desire to step closer to him, a desire that she resisted. He asked, "Do you have any ideas for what we can do? Does your sister have any board games, maybe?"

Elizabeth shrugged, "Jane isn't much for board games, but she probably has a puzzle or two around. She is fond of the 5,000 to 10,000 piece ones." She had a sudden image of being next to Darcy at the table as the hunted for edge pieces. She could imagine their hands brushing as they picked the pieces up.

"No good," he told her, banishing her little fantasy when he inclined his head slightly towards Anne, indicating that she could not handle such a complicated puzzle.

"Jane," Elizabeth called, "Do you have any activities planned for the evening? Anne needs something fun to do." She added to herself, _And I do, too, so I don't keep thinking about how kissable Darcy's lips look tonight, even if they are chapped.  
_

Jane replied, "I've got the perfect thing. Who likes decorating gingerbread cookies?"

"I do, I do!" Anne exclaimed with a big grin. "Now how do you decorate cookies?"

Later, after Jane had mixed up the frosting, she and Elizabeth took turns dipping the cookies before laying them on a cooling rack to let the excess frosting drip off. Darcy, Gigi and Anne added sprinkles and tiny red hots as the sisters dipped more cookies. When they were finally ready to decorate some cookies themselves, Elizabeth did not start on her own decorating right away. Instead she stood watching the others and most especially Darcy.

She was intrigued by the look of concentration upon Darcy's face as he meticulously added individual candy dots to make the eyes, nose, mouth and hair of a gingerbread woman. As he added "buttons" down her dress, he bit his lower lip as he concentrated. Elizabeth, felt her eyes being drawn to that lip. She wanted to trace his lip and teeth with her finger, to tuck back the hair which was hanging down along his face, to feel the stubble along his cheek from him not having shaved since the morning.

This was the completely opposite approach of Anne, who was dipping the cookies in a plate of sprinkles after Gigi showed her that technique. She had completed many more cookies than Darcy judging by what the completed cookies looked like.

Elizabeth sat in the unoccupied chair next to Darcy and started working on decorating a tree by shaking green sprinkles on it. Once, just once, their arms grazed, and then they turned a bit towards each other and smiled. Elizabeth felt happy. She hoped Caroline was alright and Charles and Louisa weren't having too bad of a time in the emergency room, but did not feel the least but guilty about enjoying this simple time with Darcy.

Darcy drank in each smile he earned with Elizabeth, listened to each little anecdote about her childhood. He found himself falling deeper under her spell but rather than fighting it, welcomed it.


	8. Chapter 8

**It has taken me a little while to find my way on this chapter and I tossed out a couple of false starts, but finally got into the groove. Enjoy!**

**Chapter 8**

Jane kept fretting now and again about what might be happening with Caroline and about her failure to make sure no one had allergies. Elizabeth kept responding, "You didn't do anything wrong." But after a while she decided that a better approach might be to distract her sister, so Elizabeth began regaling them all with stories of her adventures making cookies with Jane and their grandmother.

After a while, Jane began to contribute also, "Remember when we left the tray of cookies on Memaw's counter and were watching TV and heard that crash from the kitchen? We all ran in and we all speechless for a while, but then Memaw yelled . . ."

Jane and Elizabeth looked at each other, widened their eyes and simultaneously looked straight ahead before shouting, "Fred! What the . . . " they stared at each other, and Darcy caught the little flick of Elizabeth's head indicating that Gigi was present, before adding, "fudge!" Then they both laughed.

Elizabeth explained, "Except Memaw didn't say 'fudge' of course, we are giving the PG version, but afterwards she insisted that was what she said. Because of course our very proper grandmother would never swear."

Darcy and Gigi found themselves laughing along with the sisters even though they were not sure who Fred was, or why a grandmother denying she ever said an obscenity was so funny. Anne just looked confused and uncertain how she should react.

"Was Fred a dog? Did he ruin all the cookies?" Darcy asked, curious as to what could have happened and eager to keep the story going.

Jane and Elizabeth looked at each other and burst out laughing again. Their amusement made their eyes shine and their cheeks pink. Objectively, Darcy acknowledged to himself that Jane Bingley was lovely by all conventional measures, but it was Elizabeth who he couldn't stop looking at. Her whole face transformed by her merriment, and though objectively none of her features were perfect, (nose slightly too long, unruly corkscrew curls, gap between her front teeth, lightly freckled skin, eyebrows a little too thick, but framing lovely dark eyes that sparkled with life and intelligence) somehow they were all perfect together and he couldn't help but smile too, just from seeing her smile. All he wanted right then was for her to keep smiling and it was with difficulty that he made himself listen to her explanation.

Elizabeth responded, "Fred was our Grandfather. Pop-Pop had become a bit simple, dementia, but he loved cookies and couldn't remember that he was a diabetic. Pop-Pop pulled the tray towards himself to snitch some cookies and somehow managed to tip the whole tray down onto the floor. We caught him stuffing cookies from the floor into his pockets and mouth, like he was a squirrel storing nuts for the winter." She puffed out her cheeks with air, to mimic the imagined cookie stuffed cheeks of their grandfather as she mimed stuffing cookies into her mouth and pockets.

Jane continued the story, "Memaw told him, 'Fred, give me the cookies,' but he took off running with his booty and got into the attic. Memaw was cursing up a storm as she tugged on the door knob which wouldn't turn; he'd somehow managed to lock the door."

Elizabeth continued, "You should have heard the filth that came out of Memaw's mouth. I have never heard its like and could never recreate it, can't even remember most of it, I think I was thirteen making Jane not yet fifteen, and although I had heard a lot of words in middle school, she proved to me that I was very ignorant of the fine art of foul language. We struggled for minutes and finally Memaw gave up and called 911. By the time the fire department busted open the attic door with an axe, there was nothing left but crumbs. Pop-Pop was smiling and patting his belly as they pulled him out. You wouldn't have thought that there was a thing wrong with him, but for the fact that his belly was noticeably bigger, as if he were Santa Claus." Elizabeth stood up, curved her shoulders down like she was an elderly man, patted the belly she had stuck out by pushing her whole torso forward, tipped her head to the side, and then offered a huge toothy grin.

Everyone save Anne (and Elizabeth who was doing her best to stay in character) was laughing now. Jane was laughing so hard that she was crying, so when her cell phone started ringing, it took her a few moments to calm down enough to answer it.

When everyone heard her say, "Hello Charles," they did their best to quell their laughter, but it was hard from hearing her half of the conversation. "Really? Her lips kept swelling and then her cheeks swelled up like a chipmunk?"

Gigi puffed her cheeks out and pushed her lips out, while Darcy glared at her just a little; it did not seem right to be making fun of Caroline for an allergic reaction. He whispered to Jane, "But is she better now?"

Jane nodded, while still listening to Charles. "Well I hope she doesn't have to stay too long."

Once she got off the phone call, Jane explained, "Caroline is a lot better now, but she hasn't even seen the doctor yet, so it may still be a while."

After that there was a lull in the conversation. "What happened to your grandfather?" Darcy finally asked.

"Ultimately he was okay after being given insulin and monitored. But that was the last time I really remember Pop-Pop smiling." Elizabeth's face looked wistful.

Jane added, "He only lived a couple of years after that. Memaw never made her Christmas cookies with us again; she said it didn't seem right to make them when Pop-Pop couldn't enjoy them. But she gave us both the recipe and told us we should keep up the tradition with our own family. But it wasn't quite the same making them at home."

"Thank you Jane," Darcy nodded at her, "Elizabeth," he nodded at her, too, his eyes lingering on her as he added, "for sharing all these amusing stories and for letting us decorate the cookies with you all." Darcy said, adding, "It has been too long."

"I wish I could have decorated cookies before this," Anne added. "We had fancy cookies for holidays, but we never made any."

"It's been since before Gigi was born for me," Darcy commented, and then looking over at Gigi, who knew what that meant, added, "I used to make cookies with Mom, she had a cookie recipe from our grandmother. I remember it had sour cream, lemon extract and a little ginger."

"That sounds good," Elizabeth responded.

"I'm sorry I never thought to make her cookies with you, Gigi."

Gigi gave him a tight smile, trying not to think about how much she had missed from growing up without a mother. Her mother died two days after she was born from a brain aneurysm.

"Do you still have the recipe?" Jane asked. "Maybe we can make that kind or something similar later this weekend."

Darcy shrugged, "I don't know where it is . . . but I think I know who does." He pulled his cell phone out from his back pocket and hesitated a moment before pulling up the text conversation with Catherine de Bourgh. First he scrolled past her angry messages from before which he hadn't yet deigned to read, before searching through "Happy Thanksgiving" GIFs until he found a Peanuts one. He sent it and then quickly tapped out, "Could I have Grandma Annie's lemon cutout cookie recipe?" After he sent that, he stowed the phone back in his pocket. He ignored the phone as it vibrated again and again with new messages. He knew whatever replies his aunt was sending immediately, wouldn't be the recipe.

It was half past seven when they finished decorating the gingerbread cookies. They had just started sampling the cookies when Charles called Jane again. After Jane got off the phone she told everyone, "It looks like Caro is doing well, but they are keeping her for a while to make sure she doesn't have a biphasic reaction," clarifying, "that's like a secondary allergic reaction when someone seems fine. They are hoping she is cleared to leave by nine or ten."

"That's good," Darcy told Jane. "I am sorry, though, that I didn't remember Caro's allergy sooner. I hate that they are all missing our fun." He couldn't help but think that it was more pleasant without Bingley's sisters, though Bingley himself would have added to the fun.

Gigi must have been thinking something similar as she responded, "Somehow I don't think Caro or Louisa are the cooking decorating type," Gigi commented, "nor the eating cookie type either, but I bet Charles would at least like eating them," she added right before biting the head off a bear she had just finished decorating.

"Your poor mama bear!" Anne cried.

"I was merciful," Gigi told her. "Better to just put her out of her misery all at once than nibble each limb off, one by one."

Anne pulled her own cookie out from her mouth, looked at it carefully and then commented, "I'm eating a star, so it doesn't matter which way I eat it."

"What should we do next?" Jane asked. "I was thinking about putting on a couple of Christmas movies but Q has monopolized the T.V."

Gigi, who had spent time in Quentin's company before, went to investigate. She reported back, "Q's asleep and your liquor's gone. I think we can put on anything now and he won't even notice."

After some debate about various Christmas DVDs, they decided on _A Christmas Story_ to be followed by _Elf. _Gigi took a seat on the couch, hoping that her brother and Elizabeth would sit next to each other on the loveseat. However, apparently Anne wasn't remembering the plan on trying to get Darcy and Elizabeth together as she, herself, sat down on the loveseat and then asked, "Elizabeth, will you sit next to me?" Gigi ended up sitting with Jane and Darcy. Anne, who had never seen the movie before was entranced with watching all of Ralphie's travails.

When everyone seemed occupied, Jane slipped away to unload the now dry dishes. A minute or so later, Gigi followed. The TV was loud enough and the separation far enough that Gigi was confident they wouldn't be overheard.

"Jane, can I talk to you about my brother and your sister?"

"Sure." Jane put away the plate she had in her hands and then gave Gigi her undivided attention.

"Ugh, it sounds so junior high to be asking this," Gigi started fiddling with the edge of her top, letting the nubby surface soothe her, "but does Elizabeth like Darcy, I mean, _like _like him?"

"Well, if you had asked me before today, I would have told you that Lizzy said she hoped they could be friends. Now of course Charles and I thought there was more to it than that; I mean she's always had strong emotions when it comes to him. She found him annoying over our ski weekend but Darcy really got under Lizzy's skin at your aunt's charity ball when he asked her out while insulting her at the same time. She kept telling me that, well, that he was, and I quote, 'An insufferable prick,' but she felt differently about him after his Facebook message when he explained his actions and what George Wickham was really like. But Lizzy is plenty resistant to changing her opinion once made and hates admitting when she is wrong. She told me, though, that your brother in New York was like a whole different person. She never said anything about having romantic feelings toward him, but when she talked about him she would go all 'Bambi eyes' and given the way she's been acting toward him today, I think there could be something more there."

"That's good. I'll tell you that Darcy confessed that he really likes her. I saw the way they acted around each other in New York. It was a pity that her trip got cut short. He was really looking forward to seeing her again at your wedding but then of course Anne ended up in the hospital again."

They spoke a while with Gigi urging that they do all they could to forward the pairing, while Jane urged restraint. "If I know my sister, if you try to push her into doing anything, she will get all stubborn like a mule, sink her heels in and refuse to budge. Let's just make sure they have time to talk, and hopefully they can work everything out themselves." They returned to the living room just in time to see Ralphie open the special package his father had given him.

Between movies they took a little break. Darcy told Anne, "Your mom keeps blowing up my phone asking about you and the new alerts on my watch really kept me from enjoying the movie until I took it off." He omitted mentioning that he was watching Elizabeth's reactions to his favorite scenes, trusting that he wasn't being all that obvious in the dim, blue light. "I told your mom that you are fine, but maybe you should talk to her yourself."

Anne responded, "I already texted her and then I shut my phone off. I don't think I did anything wrong by leaving, but she won't rest until I go back home. I'm determined to have a fun weekend, but I think after that I should go home."

"You don't have to do that, you know." Darcy said gently.

"I know, but Mom needs me."

"If that's what you want, Anne."

"Does anyone want a drink or anything more to eat?" Jane, ever the consummate hostess, asked the room at large.

Darcy responded, "If you have the ingredients, I'd love to make homemade cocoa."

"What a great idea. We should have everything you need."

Darcy followed Jane into the kitchen and Elizabeth found herself following behind.

Before Anne could sit back down on the loveseat, Gigi intercepted her, thinking this was the perfect opportunity to talk to Anne. "Maybe you can sit next to me for the next movie?"

"But I am liking making a new friend!" Anne protested.

"I'm glad you like Elizabeth, but don't you remember the plan!?" Gigi hissed. "We want Elizabeth to be family and that'll only happen if Darcy has time with her."

Meanwhile in the kitchen, Elizabeth watched as Darcy made the cocoa. She couldn't help but admire his muscular arm as he stirred.

Later, as she held out her cup for a refill which Darcy dipped out with a soup ladle from a pot on the stove, Elizabeth told him, "This is just marvelous. I wouldn't have thought of a candy cane stirrer, but the chocolate mint combination is wonderful."

"I'm so glad you like it." Darcy sipped from his own mug before taking the half melted candy cane out of his mug, licking the drip of cocoa from the end before plunging the end into his mouth.

Elizabeth found herself drawn to his lips, tinged slightly brown in one corner from the cocoa, still chapped, and the glistening red and white striped candy cane sticking out on the opposite side. She found herself wondering, _Would he taste of chocolate and mint if we kissed? _

Elizabeth shook her head as if that would banish the thought, but instead was drawn into a fantasy in which she pointed out to him, "You have a little cocoa on your lip." He would swipe his lip with his tongue and miss it, and then she would reach up with her thumb (he was probably a foot or more taller than her) and wipe it away, sweeping her thumb along her lower lip until he captured her small hand in his much larger one, kissing first her palm and then her wrist.

Elizabeth inhaled sharply feeling warm, warmer than from just the hot cocoa. She wondered what it would feel like to be enfolded in his arms, not in a compassionate hug, but to be embraced while they kissed. She wondered what his wavy hair would feel like if she ran her fingers through it.

She stared at him and he stared back, but neither of them said anything. Jane interrupted the moment by asking, "Are you ready for the next movie? Everyone else is."

"Sure," Elizabeth answered distractedly. She followed Jane out.

Darcy for his own part had been thinking thoughts along similar lines to those of Elizabeth's. The two feet that separated them as they stood and sipped felt close, but insurmountably far. Two feet was the space of friends, but he dearly wanted to bridge it.

When he entered the living room, to his surprise he found that the only unoccupied seat was next to Elizabeth on the loveseat. Darcy was a tall man, but not wide enough that he was right next to her. Instead there were a few inches between them. But he was very aware of her proximity, making sure to keep his leg that was closer to her, several inches away from hers. _If only she would lean into me! _But throughout the movie they each politely remained on their separate cushions.

After the movie finished, Elizabeth stretched and yawned. "Jane, I'm starting to get tired and I'm wondering where we will all sleep in your house. You know me, I won't mind a couch or even the floor."

"That's a good question," Jane answered. "Originally, I had the Hursts in the second bedroom with the full bed and Caroline in the third bedroom with the day bed. I have an inflatable full sized bed that I could add to that room and then we could have three gals in there, but I think Darcy and the extra girl will have to bunk out here on the couches, well couch and loveseat."

"I want to stay with Gigi," Anne offered shyly. "It will be like a slumber party. I always wanted to have one of those! Can Elizabeth stay with us, too?"

Gigi had a ready answer. "Caro shouldn't have to be on a couch after all she's been through. So I guess Caro should have the day bed and Anne and I can share the inflatable bed." She gave Darcy a look and a smirk.

Darcy caught on quickly, "So I guess that means Elizabeth and I are out here."

"I hope that's okay." Jane looked concerned. "Lizzy, we can set up a spot for you in the master bedroom if you'd rather do that."

Elizabeth couldn't think of anything that would be more awkward than sharing a bedroom with newlyweds, not that they'd do anything while she was there, but still . . . . So she hurried to reassure Jane. "It'll be just fine; I can fit on the loveseat and Darcy can take the couch."

"Okay," Jane responded. "I'll let Charles know, so that he can tell the others."

It was a flurry of activity after that as Jane's guests took turns using the guest bathroom and getting ready for bed. By ten, Jane had finally nudged Q and gotten him to get off the recliner and head to bed, and Anne and Gigi had settled onto on the inflatable bed in the other guest room. Elizabeth and Darcy found themselves standing together alone in the living room, and they were both feeling awkward.

Darcy commented, "I guess we should stay up for a while as they will probably be back soon."

Elizabeth turned on some 24 hour news, before carefully sitting down on the loveseat rather than flopping down as she normally would. She wasn't really paying attention to the TV, but it gave her an excuse not to talk. She was hyper-aware of the man that she was sharing the room with, and feeling very awkward. Here she was in a loose blue t-shirt type nightshirt, very aware of the fact that she wasn't wearing a bra and that the nightshirt only fell to mid-thigh when she was standing and even shorter now that she was sitting. _If he catches a glimpse at my polka-dotted panties, I would be so embarrassed!_ She quickly covered up with the fuzzy pink blanket covered with happy corgi puppies that Jane had supplied.

Elizabeth was reminded of the time when Darcy had come up to her hotel room in New York City as she had been in her pajamas then, too, but at least that time she'd had shorts. She wanted to say something clever to him, to be witty and nonchalant about the fact that they would be sleeping in the same room, but she could not think of anything to say.

Darcy wanted to sit next to Elizabeth on the loveseat, but as this was now to be her bed, that didn't seem right, so he plopped down on the couch, but on the end closest to the loveseat, which was at a right angle to it.

Elizabeth noticed that Darcy did not seem to be ill at ease in his running shorts and a sleeveless athletic shirt. The shirt was just a bit too tight and the shorts showed off a lot of his legs. She did not recall ever seeing him in shorts before; in New York he was always wearing suits, and he had been dressed up at the Rosings Ball. While he had been more casual during the ski weekend, he always had long pants and a long shirt on. It felt intimate to see him in these things, to see the hair on his legs, to see the outline of his chest. _Perhaps_, she reflected, _it only seems strange because he is going to sleep in them._

Darcy was very glad he had packed his running clothes, as at Rosings he normally just wore boxer shorts to bed as his guest room had an en-suite bathroom. He wondered how best he could use this opportunity (which it was obvious that Gigi had arranged) while they were together to see about getting their relationship out of the "friend-zone." He wondered, _Just what does Elizabeth think of me_ and _Will I ever live down being a complete dofus at the Rosings Ball? If only she would give me a sign!_

Darcy noticed that Elizabeth kept glancing over at him. _Is this my sign?_ He wondered, half hopeful, half fearful.

"Darcy?" She addressed him, turning toward him as her nervous fingers bunched up the blanket in her lap, pleating it into sections between each finger.

"Yes, Elizabeth?" He answered huskily, turning to lean on the arm of the couch closest to her, so they were only separated by a few inches. He looked over at her with hopeful eyes. Elizabeth found herself leaning closer towards him also, the respective arms of their couches being the only real thing separating them.

Darcy never found out just what Elizabeth had planned to say as just then they heard a key in the lock and then the front door swung open. Both of them sat back as Charles held the door as first Caroline and then Louisa walked inside. Caroline was holding her high heeled shoes and walked in barefooted. Her face was still puffy and red.

"Are you okay, Caro?" Elizabeth asked, jumping up, hoping it was not evident to everyone that she had just been wondering what it would be like to kiss Darcy and whether it might have happened if she had just leaned forward a bit more. Darcy tried to focus on Caroline also, she deserved that at least, but a little part of his mind noted how much of Elizabeth's legs he was seeing, and how nice they looked. He was also regretting the interruption.

"Yes, and I may even look normal by morning." Caroline gave a little shrug and said in a subdued voice. "I am sorry I caused everyone so much trouble, but I am so glad that I have such a good sister and brother." She smiled at each of them in turn. "I am exhausted; I'm going to bed." The three of them wished Darcy and Elizabeth goodnight and walked out of the living room.

Once they were gone, Elizabeth said quietly, "Was that a body-snatcher moment or what? Who did they replace Caro with? If I knew an allergic reaction would make her that nice, I would have fed her pecans months ago!"

Darcy chuckled. "She isn't all bad. She been though a lot in her life, probably more than you know." Darcy spent the next little while telling Elizabeth what he knew about Caroline's upbringing. He was glad that he and Elizabeth were talking, but just wished the topic wasn't Caroline.

A little later, they turned out the lights and laid down to sleep, with their heads on pillows close to one another.

"I am glad you came, Darcy," Elizabeth mumbled, before she fell asleep.


	9. Chapter 9

_So for those of you hoping for a bit more of the Will Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet romance, this chapter isn't it. Instead it veered off in a whole other direction with Caroline as the focus. We will get back to ODC, though, probably with Chapter 10. I read the first half of Great Expectations when we were in major shut down mode and I noticed this chapter picks up on one of its central themes. Additionally, my ladies' bible study group was reading a book called Be the Bridge to help us explore the history of racism and discrimination in our country and what the church's reaction should be. While I don't agree with the idea that each of us bears collective guilt for what has occurred in our nation, it does have us wanting to understand all our neighbors better._

_Given how long this story has been taking, I am now aiming to be finished by Thanksgiving. Thanks for hanging in there._

* * *

**Chapter 9**

Caroline was exhausted. She lay in the bed in a cheap ice blue cotton sleep shirt borrowed from Jane, and some white and blue striped fuzzy socks that were also Jane's. Caroline had been surprised that Jane had so much blue, but the items looked almost new which made sense as they were not Jane's signature light pink.

The twin bed was comfortable enough, but smaller than the king-sized bed Caroline was used to. She was trying to succumb to that pull and drift away, but it was difficult to clear her mind with the whispers and giggles of Anne and Gigi. Caroline felt like she was a third wheel but she also felt unwilling to do anything to inject herself into their fun and face rejection.

In the movies sleepovers always seemed like so much fun, but Caroline never had any at her home growing up, or even friends over at all once she realized how poor she and her mother were. She was too embarrassed to have anyone see their house.

Of course it hadn't always been that way. When Caroline was little, she saw neither deficits in their home or in her mother. While she had awakened bit by bit, that they had less than other people, she never felt poor. The word "poor" was reserved for the people in the trailer park or in the projects, or migrant workers; certainly it did not apply to them.

However, Caroline awoke to the divide between rich and poor when she spent that first summer with the Bingleys at Cape Cod and afterwards what had been acceptable, normal, comfortable, became unacceptable, abnormal, uncomfortable, though as a child Caroline had no way to change it.

Every day when she got home from school, Caroline felt despair in seeing the unchanging landscape of her home. There was the worn snot-green shag carpeting, the threadbare floral sofa with large orange flowers that might have been chic in the 70s but was sadly outdated now, and the orange rocking chair that was gloppy with too many layers of paint.

The rest of the home wasn't any better. The vinyl kitchen floor was scuffed and scratched, and an indeterminate color that might have once been white, but now alternated between cream, beige and tan, and the countertops over the original cabinets had been painted a navy color, with drips of paint dried along the faux oak cabinets that sagged. The cracked tile bathroom was in a shade of diarrhea brown and contained a whitish sink with a rust stain that originated with the rusty faucet; the commode was cracked at the top of the tank and missing a tank lid.

Caroline's bedroom still had fake wood paneled walls, which she had talked her mother into re-painting sky blue for a birthday present, but her mom got the cheapest paint and it still showed a bit of the purple and pink hue bleeding through. Caroline had done her best to cover the walls with her award certificates, but the shiny metal-hued stickers and crisp paper, made her only notice the deficits of the room more: the dingy sheets, frayed quilt, the avocado green wastebasket, the missing section of molding.

And her mother was not much better. Whereas before, Caroline thought her mother lovely with her golden hair, now she saw a woman who had creases around her eyes, stretched earlobes from wearing too many heavy earrings and floppy neck skin. Caroline saw that her mother was being dragged down by life, her looks ground down from disappointment after disappointment. It didn't help that she wore thrift store clothes and dollar store makeup with a foundation that was a touch too pink, and who went far too long before buying hair dye in the grocery store which left mostly dark roots showing through.

At middle school Caroline could pretend she wasn't poor when wearing the clothes Mimi bought her, at least for a while, until it got too cold. Before school started, her mom tried to take her to K-mart for school clothes (as she did every year). Caroline demurred, "Dad bought me so many clothes, I don't need any more." It was a lie of course as Mimi was the one who bought her the clothes (and they were almost all summer clothes), but Caroline didn't really think of it as a lie. Really, it was her father delegating. Whenever Caroline talked about her vacations with her father's family, she always did her best to make it seem like she was her daddy's little darling and hardly mentioned Mimi. She was afraid if her mother knew how things really were, that she would not get to go at all.

"If you are sure," her mother responded, with a look that said she was distressed even though her tone stayed even and calm. "I'm glad your dad wants to get you nice things but just don't forget where you come from. Guys like your father tend to be the out of sight, out of mind type and there is no guarantee you'll go out there again." Caroline was horrified by her mother's prediction, but fortunately it did not come true. However, in looking back at it all, Caroline rather suspected that it was Mimi that made sure she had a plane ticket sent to her every summer.

That first year, eventually Caroline needed a coat, winter clothes and bigger shoes. Back to K-mart they went and Caroline tried her best to hide her dismay at the no-name brands; she wasn't impressed by whomever that Jaclyn Smith was. Whereas before, Caroline had known her clothes weren't exactly the height of fashion, she had never realized how embarrassing they really were. But she also knew that her mother took pride in buying her daughter new things, in not having to shop for her at St. Vincent de Paul and Goodwill.

Caroline only remembered attending one sleepover, when she was fifteen. The whole girls' basketball team was invited to Katie's house for a beginning of the season party. Each girl was supposed to bring a t-shirt for the other girls to decorate with encouraging messages.

When Caroline asked her mother for a t-shirt, her mother's lips thinned and she said, "Caroline, money is tight this month. Remember we had to fix the car radiator?"

Caroline nodded; of course she knew about the expense, but surely there was enough money still left for a t-shirt.

"If you want a new t-shirt, you're going to have to spend your allowance on it." Her mother announced, her face slack and worn.

"But Mom!" Caroline protested.

"Twenty dollars should be plenty for the month. It is way more than my parents gave me." She gave Caroline a serious look, the kind of look that said begging would not get her anywhere. Then she asked the dreaded question, "Did you spend all of your allowance already? You only got it a week ago Thursday."

In fact Caroline had spent it all, all but two dollars and twelve cents, plus her birthday money. She had gone to the mall with a friend, Nina who was half Indian (from India), and wandered around the makeup counters sorting out which company had the best free gift with purchase for the Christmas season and also had an item to purchase that she would really use. She had been thrilled to find a makeup artist at one of the counters who was able to find her a foundation that qualified for the free gift that would actually look good on someone who was fair with red hair.

While Caroline was still testing out dabs of foundation on her inner arm, Nina had wandered around the different makeup counters. When she came back she told Caroline, "You are sure lucky your skin is light; I think I saw a shade or two that might work for me, but I don't know what foundation or powder the black girls at our school could wear."

The makeup artist glanced and Nina and said, "I can find you a shade; You are basically tan and we have shades for that. It might be trickier if you were darker, but our darker tones blend and we have something for every woman." Caroline glanced down at the counter and spotted only two truly brown shades. She didn't see how that could work for all the different shades of African-American women out there, but was quickly distracted when the makeup artist told her, pointing to one of the samples in her arm, "that shade is perfect for you." As Caroline left the store with Nina, she felt triumphant, accomplished, competent in the world of adults and gave no more thought to what other girls might wear on their skin.

Now faced with a mother who obviously expected her to budget better, she was regretting having nothing left in reserve. Her mother took pity on Caroline and let her have the bowl of change that sat on their kitchen counter but all told she was only able to put together about four and half dollars. That put any nice t-shirts out of reach, so her mom drove Caroline to Dollar General and she had to pick something off of the one rack of shirts. There were only two plain shirts, a navy XL that could have fit three of her and a M yellow shirt that was mostly polyester and felt like the paper towels in the school bathrooms, cheap and a little scratchy. There was really only one choice, but as the yellow wasn't her color Caroline considered just not going to the sleepover.

Her mother got tired of Caroline just standing there and told her, "I don't have all day. Get it or don't get it, but I guarantee the other girls will be worrying about their own t-shirts, not yours." Caroline bought the yellow shirt.

However, it turned out there were more things to be embarrassed about, like the sleeping bag her mother pulled out of the attic that had to be twenty-years old with a red bandanna print on the inside and innumerable fuzzy pills on its burnt orange outside. Luckily for Caroline, given that she was one of the first girls to arrive, she was able to quickly stow it in a corner out of view.

Caroline felt awkward being in team captain Katie's house. Katie was a senior, popular with whitish blonde hair. She was one of those girls who was mean that everyone would excuse, the kind of girl everyone tried to find favor in, even though they hated her. At that point in her life, that was who Caroline wanted to be, and maybe still did a bit even now.

Caroline was just a sophomore and had barely made the varsity team. While being on the team improved her status, she feared closer scrutiny from girls like Katie could lead to disaster.

Caroline felt she would feel more at ease if the only other sophomore, Porsche, had been present. Porsche, whose name she knew was spelled like the car as she always told anyone who asked, was at least someone she knew. They had shared a few classes and both sang alto in choir (Caroline had wanted to play and instrument in band, but renting an instrument cost money and the only instrument the school had in large supply were the trombones and Caroline wanted to play something more dainty and as her mom pointed out, "Choir is so much cheaper, why all it requires is a black skirt and top for the concerts"). They had also spent last season on the JV team together. Porsche wasn't exactly a friend, but she was someone that Caroline could talk to for a few minutes without feeling awkward and she had no sense of malice from her.

In class Porsche was always called Porsche, so Caroline was surprised when everyone on the basketball team started calling her "Porch" their sophomore year. She got that it was a nickname, but didn't think it really fit the graceful African-American girl who seemed more dancer than jock when she looped the ball into the net.

Caroline never started called Porsche "Porch" as she did not think Porsche really liked the nickname, even if she did not complain about it. Back when they were assigned partners on an English project fall semester, Caroline had made sure to ask Porsche what she liked to be called. It was one of the first conversations she had with anyone when they were getting to know one another. Caroline had a selfish motive for this, as she always wanted to start the discussion about shortened names so she could let everyone know to call her Caro without having to seem like she was bringing up the topic for herself.

Caroline recalled that Porsche had said, "Just Porsche is fine. I'm a sports car, the best kind of sports car, and not no deck and not the Shakespeare character from the Merchant of Venice, neither."

Porsche hadn't asked what Caroline liked to be called and their conversation had moved in a different direction as Caroline asked, "Why did your parents name you that?"

"My dad's a mechanic and really likes cars. He mostly fixes those economy cars but he has admiration for all the expensive models. He said he wanted us to all know what we were worth."

It was past the starting time for the party when Porsche's older sister, a senior named Mercedes arrived. It had taken Caroline a couple of days on the varsity team to realize they were sisters, although it should have been obvious as there were only a few black girls at their high school, they had similar smiles, and they both had car names. But where Mercedes was very dark, like dark chocolate, and always had thin braids of shiny black, Porsche was more of a cafe au lait color and had straightened brown hair.

When Caroline had asked Mercedes the same question about what she liked to be called, Mercedes said, "Mercedes or Mercy is fine, but if you write Mercy, write it like 'the act of mercy' and not like the French 'merci beaucoup.'" Mercy did her the favor of actually asking Caroline how she liked to be addressed. But other than that, they had hardly talked except for Mercy showing her a better way to throw her hook shot.

Still, Mercedes seemed friendly enough, so Caroline went ahead and asked when Mercy arrived, "Where's Porsche?"

Mercedes grimaced for a second as she crossed her arms, making a flat "x" that cut her blue shirt in two. "The same place as Re'shaun, not here." She looked off into the distance as she stroked at one of her long thin braids.

That didn't seem like much of an answer to Caroline, but it did seem like Mercedes didn't really want to say, so she left it alone.

Soon after that, they were all caught up in decorating one another's shirts, and to Caroline's delight, no one seemed to notice her shirt wasn't as nice as the others or the wrong color. Caroline was feeling better about the whole thing until she noticed how generic the comments were that were being written on her shirt in permanent markers.

Caroline read things like "Win!" "Go Comets" "Make that shot, Caro." One ambitious girl had written every girl's jersey number on the back of each shirt, but Caroline noticed that hers, a "15," was just a quick free hand and not the nicely blocked numbers that Katie and most of the other girls had.

The comments were much longer and more detailed on Katie's shirt as well. Someone wrote "Brains, brawn and beauty"; another one wrote "Team Sweetheart" in a large heart and put a lot of little hearts around it. When Caroline saw that, she wondered which one of her teammates was the biggest brown noser. Another girl had drawn basketballs alternating with her jersey number "21" around the edges of the sleeves.

No one really excluded Caroline, but she felt like no one cared that she was there either and the pizza just settled in her stomach like a lump. After the movie, the girls began arranging their pillows and sleeping bags to sleep on the floor of the den. Katie told Jess and Sara to put their bags by her (she was sleeping across the couch). Other girls were making similar requests and rather than wait for an invitation and be disappointed, Caroline settled herself against a wall, got in her bag and closed her eyes.

She faked sleep so long that eventually she even fell asleep, but roused when she heard giggling and heard someone ask, "Is anyone asleep yet? I heard this thing where you can put a sleeping person's hand in warm water and it will make her pee." Another girl added, "I think Caro is out."

Caroline sat up, "No I'm not!" she declared. The girls moved on to speculating who might be close to sleep. Caroline lay down again, but now found herself wide awake. After a few moments worrying about the hand in water prank, Carolina's mind returned to focusing on her horrible yellow shirt which still had so much bare space. Finally, she got up and by the dim light from the bathroom's cracked door, picked her way over her slumbering teammates to grab her shirt, the first three permanent markers she could find (they were scattered all over the room and it took her a while to even find that many in the dim light from the open bathroom door) and one of the pieces of cardboard the girls had been using to make sure the design did not bleed through.

Caroline retreated to the bathroom, closed the door and flicked on the rest of the lights. She then discovered why it was easier to find these particular markers. None of them were pretty colors, the pinks, reds or purples. Instead, she had a green, a black and a yellow. Caroline immediately put the yellow aside as it wouldn't show up on her yellow shirt. She then examined the markings on her shirt. She was almost certain that the orange "Win!" had been drawn with a hot pink marker, but against the yellow it became orange. Then there was the bluish-greenish number "15" on the back that she was almost certain had been drawn with the blue marker.

Caroline sighed, certain that it really did not matter whether she used the black or green marker, nothing was going to look good on the yellow shirt. She decided, though, that she could at least make it look like she was more popular if she filled it up a little. She drew a daisy necklace below the ribbing with the green marker and made the thin "21" into block lettering with the black marker. She wrote, "Caro Rulz" in a bubbly script and "Take it for 3" with long angular letters. There was still a lot of space left, but Caroline couldn't think of what else to write, so she gathered everything up, turned off the lights and crept out, almost running into Mercedes.

Caroline gave a little squeal. She knew someone was there from the faintly shining eyes, even if it was hard to tell who at first. "Whacha doin' Ca-ro-line?" Mercy asked, almost singing her name. She looked down at Caroline literally from her six foot one inch frame.

Caroline's first thought was to deny doing anything, but before she could, Mercy commented, "Ah, trying to fix your shirt. They made a mess of mine."

"What'd they do?" Caroline asked, suddenly curious.

Mercy didn't say anything for a moment, but then she leaned down and whispered, "Porsche's told me you're okay, so I'll tell you, but not here." She tipped her head to one side to indicate which way they should go. Caroline, happy to have someone paying attention to her at last, followed the taller girl through a door, still clutching her shirt and supplies, and found herself outside.

They walked over towards an old metal swing-set and by the light of the almost full moon, Caroline could see much better than inside. Once they reached the swing-set, floodlights burst on. Off to the side, there was a metal bench which Mercedes walked toward. Mercedes flicked her hand which was holding something white, and a t-shirt unfurled, very light against her dark clothes and skin. Then she laid it out on the bench. Caroline couldn't really tell the colors of the words on Mercy's shirt, but she could make out some of the words that were in darker marker. Caroline found some of the very same phrases that were on her shirt and then spotted and read aloud, "The next Michael Jordan."

"Yeah, that one's okay, 'cause Mike's great, but that's probably the only black person they know." Mercy commented.

Caroline kept looking at the shirt and near the bottom spotted in thick dark block letters the phrase, "Merci, our Nigga." Instead of reading this phrase aloud she exclaimed, "They didn't." Caroline was shocked, horrified, but a secret part of her felt a thrill that she was in the know, that Mercy had confided in her.

"Yeah they did, it's there in black and white. I don't know who did it, but I'ma gonna find out.'' Mercedes said it so quietly, calmly, with no apparent anger.

"Coach'll be mad," Caroline responded. "She might even kick the girl off the team."

"She might, but I'm not gonna tell her," Mercedes responded.

"Why not?" Caroline asked.

"I don't want more people knowing about it. Maybe all the other girls know. Maybe they've all seen it."

"I didn't," Caroline responded. Trying to make Mercedes feel better she said, "I was only thinking about what I was writing and trying to get to the next shirt as I didn't want to miss anyone's shirt. I bet hardly anyone saw it."

"Well, I don't want anyone else to see it either, but I don't want to just throw out the shirt. I like what some of the girls wrote. Which one did you write, Caro?"

Caroline searched for a bit and then touched her own comment, a bit embarrassed by her own generic comment: "Mercy, take us to district and state." At least she felt that the script was nice.

Caroline had a sudden inspiration. "If you don't want to keep the evidence, maybe we can make the bad words into something else."

" I 'spose it's worth a shot," Mercy conceded, looking around nervously.

Caroline took that as permission. Eager to please Mercedes and fix things, she stuck in the cardboard piece and using the black and green markers began transforming the letters into wild looking leaves and grasses, extending the design to ring around the whole bottom edge, darkening portions to obscure the letters that were less easy to transform into shading.

Caroline was pleased with how it all came out, but when Mercedes looked at it closely she was not. "What are you playing at? You think I'm from the jungle or something?"

"No, of course not."

"And now no one will believe me!" Mercedes exclaimed, snatching the shirt. "You're in on it, aren't you?"

"No," Caroline answered at once, hopelessly confused, feeling a sickening twisting in her stomach. She didn't understand why she was now under attack. Grasping for something, anything to say, she blurted. "I am friends with Porsche; I'd never do that to her sister."

"Friends, huh?" Mercedes looked at her with such loathing that Caroline shrunk back. "My sister said you were okay and not friends and she and Re'Shaun skipped this sh*t storm, but I knew better; no one was gonna mess up my senior year even if I didn't get team captain. So what's our brother's name, huh?"

Clearly it was a test even if Caroline feared that even a correct answer wouldn't help. When Caroline and Porsche worked on their project after school in the school library (neither had invited the other home), Caroline recalled that Porsche's brother was the one to pick her up. Caroline knew she had heard his name at least a couple of times, and Porsche had told her how when he was little the kids at school would sing some song about it . . . . She struggled to recall the songs that little kids knew. There was the clean up song, London Bridge, Mary had a Little . . . "Lamb, his name is Lamb."

"Wrong! That's just a stupid nickname." The way she said it was like a buzzer on a game show, harsh and unforgiving. "He's Lamborghini." Mercedes crumpled the t-shirt up into a tight ball as if she could squish it out of existence. "You'd better not say nothing about this."

"I won't," Caroline promised.

"See that you don't," Mercedes glared and then stalked back inside. Caroline expected to hear the door slam, but Mercedes opened and closed it very carefully.

Caroline stayed out by herself until she felt herself shivering. She had no desire to go back inside. Everything was tilted, twisted, backwards. Things that she thought she knew did not make sense anymore. She did not understand why Mercedes was so angry with her.

After that evening, every time Caroline saw Mercedes at basketball practice she tried to stay out of her way. While she still talked with Porsche and tried to deepen their acquaintance into something closer to friendship, she felt wary around Mercedes. Although most of the other girls wore their decorated t-shirts around school, Caroline never did and neither did Mercedes. For Caroline, the t-shirt ended up at the bottom of her drawer, buried but not forgotten.

Lying in the dark, hearing Georgiana and Anne whispering about Will and Elizabeth, Caroline felt an odd sort of numbness. She felt she should care that Will was slipping further away from her, but she didn't. She tried to muster up enthusiasm for doing something, anything to turn Will away from Elizabeth, but it felt like too much of a burden.

Caroline's mind turned back to her conversation with Margaret on the airplane. Margaret had told her that she didn't have to hold onto her resentment. She thought about Mercedes and wondered how much resentment she must have been holding onto, even then as a teenager. With the perspective as an adult, she understood that as an unimportant sophomore she was an easier, safer person to be angry with than team captain Katie and all the rest. Not that Mercedes did not have a good reason to be angry. But having all that anger all the time, being suspicious of everything, that would have been hard.

Caroline wondered what Mercedes and Porsche were doing now. She even had a vague idea of trying to find them on Facebook until she remembered their last name was Brown. Probably the only way to find them would be if they had mutual friends from high school on Facebook, but wondered who that could be.

Caroline thought about how Thanksgiving was supposed to be about gratitude. She should be grateful that her sister and brother took her to the emergency room and missed out on their Thanksgiving meal. They hadn't complained even though it was her own stupid fault.

Charlie had even tried to make things better by acting crazy just for her. He'd walked back and forth in the tiny exam room she was in while they waited for a doctor, trying to imitate a turkey, flapping his bent arms as wings, sticking his bottom out as he bent forward and swayed his head forward and back and making a "bok bok" sound. Despite her swollen face, Caroline had almost laughed; Charlie had sounded like the Cadbury bunny making chicken noises as it laid a creme egg.

"That's not the sound a turkey makes!" Louisa exclaimed while Caroline was still trying to decide if it was worth saying something with her still swollen lips and tongue. "Didn't you learn in kindergarten that it goes gobble, gobble?" Caroline smiled with remembering.

She tried to settle herself down, but more and more thoughts continued to intrude. Just what job opportunity did Margaret have in mind for her? Was she really, at her core, the kind person Margaret seemed to think she was? Was she getting anywhere at all by trying to be as cut-throat as Katie had been. Did she want to be that kind of person anymore?

Caroline gave up on sleep then and sat up, thinking one last trip to the bathroom might help.

"I'm so sorry, Caro," Gigi apologized. "We're being too loud, aren't we?"

"No," Caroline responded with the truth. "Yeah, I heard you, but I've got too much on my mind to sleep. "

Anne whispered something in Gigi's ear. "Oh, good idea!" Gigi exclaimed. "Let's go get some cookies and milk."

Although those were two foods that Caroline almost never ate in her effort to keep her figure, she was tempted more by the offered camaraderie than the cookies. "Maybe just one," she temporized, "but we need to try to be quiet."

They crept out of the guest room. Anne tiptoed in an exaggerated manner as if her only example of how to walk quietly was a cartoon show. Gigi walked more regularly, although softly. Caroline held back a little, walking slower so that she could peer at the people sleeping in the living room. While Gigi and Anne were already entering the kitchen, Caroline observed Will on sofa and Elizabeth on the loveseat, heads near each other, faces relaxed in sleep.

While it was impossible to know if the attraction she had seen between them had advanced while she had been gone, Caroline felt that at the very least they were companionable and comfortable with each other. Caroline had known Will far longer, but he continued to be more standoffish with her. She still felt like an outsider, peering into a lavish shop with items she could never afford. Will Darcy could have been her golden ticket, the win that would have finally made her someone, but she just wasn't sure that is what she wanted anymore, but she had been on her trajectory so long that inertia was still propelling her along the same path.

"Hurry up, Caroline," Anne hissed. Caroline hurried.

Gigi grabbed three little plates and three small glasses, each of which she filled with 2% milk. Normally Caroline would have been looking for fat free milk, or poured herself a cup of water instead. But reasoning that she hadn't finished her dinner, she decided to indulge herself, taking the glass without complaint and actually selecting both a tree and a star.

Anne filled up her plate with so many cookies (a whole leaning Tower of Pisa stack) that Caroline was afraid that if she ate them all she would be sick but also didn't think she should say anything; she was afraid of insulting Anne again and driving her away. Gigi was finally the one to say something: "Now Anne, that's an awful lot of cookies. We shouldn't eat them all and leave nothing for the Bingleys and their other guests. How about you start with two and see how hungry you really are."

Caroline watched as Gigi removed several cookies from the stack. Anne did not complain, but did brag, "That star on your plate, I decorated it myself."

"Very nice," Caroline said diplomatically, studying the sprinkle coated star before taking a delicate bite.


End file.
